Soapdish Crab questions

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xerxeswasachump
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Soapdish Crab questions

Post by xerxeswasachump »

I hope this hasn't already been discussed before, i did a search and couldn't find anything. I know this is a shrimp forum, but considering how knowledgable you guys are i figured i might as well ask...
Does anyone on this forum know much about Soapdish Crabs? I recently purchased one and have him living in a 30 gallon (15 gallons water) with a lot of plants and some feeder fish.
Does his water need to be salted at all? How can i get him to eat spinach and other nutrient rich foods?
Right now all he is interested in are frozen bloodworms and live blackworms.
I would appreciate any advice or links to caresheets. I haven't been able to find anything substantial on the internet.
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Post by bulrush »

I only read something once, about this particular crab, about a year ago, and here is what I remember.

Soap dish crabs are gathered from the wild (ocean beaches) (which means salt water) and packed, individually, in soap dishes for shipping, hence the name. Crabs in general are scavengers so these will eat dead meat or plants, shrimp pellets, fish food pellets.

They will survive for a time (probably less than a year) in fresh water but need brackish water to survive a long time. Temperatures should be tropical, about 78-80F.

They should not be immersed in water 100% of the time either. Like fiddler crabs, they need a stone to crawl out of the water. A length of PVC tubing leaned against the aquarium wall does just fine for this. Beware, most crabs are excellent climbers so put a heavy, tight-fitting lid on your aquarium. Make sure the lid has holes for ventilation.

Also, neither my ghost shrimp, cherry shrimp, crayfish, or fiddler crabs liked the Hikari spirulina pellets as there was hardly any spirulina in the darned things, it was the 11th ingredient. Those things (all brands, I checked) are 90% filler, i.e. corn or wheat. So don't use those.
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Re: Soapdish Crab questions

Post by Mustafa »

xerxeswasachump wrote:I know this is a shrimp forum, but considering how knowledgable you guys are i figured i might as well ask...
You should not have. There is a sticky up there for a reason that says "do not post non-shrimp topics." Please do not do this again. This has nothing to do with shrimp and that crab is not even an aquatic animal (semi-aquatic). This topic will be closed and consider this a warning.
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