Hello everyone, I thought I'd show off my crab palludarium.
It is a 75 gallon tank which I divided in half basically. Half is land, half is water. The height is roughly 6 inches which gives me, for the water side, 10 gallons approximately. What I had done was had a piece of glass cut to size, which I glued in place using pure aquarium silicone. I then placed some plastic netting I had laying around to allow the crabs to easily climb on the piece of glass. The sand that I have used is pool filter sand.
The tank is kept at 73*F using a good'ol 40w ceramic lamp. The water is kept at around 77*F using a 50w heater. For a filter I use a Tetra Whisper internal filter rated for 10 gallon aquariums. Humidity inside is at around 70% and water gravity is 1.005 to about 1.007. Yes, this is a brackish set-up.
I currently have 8 happy fiddler crabs, 5 females and 3 males. As you will see in the picture album, there's plenty of hiding places and they all seem to enjoy themselves. The whole set-up has been up and running for about 3 months now. You will be able to see in the slideshow how I've put everything together and how the whole project went along.
Without further ado, here it is! I look forward to hearing your comments and any suggestions you might have. What I'm working on now is a back-up plan to keep everything warm in the winter in case of a power outage that lasts several hours. Last year we had one that lasted almost 20.
http://picasaweb.google.com/fishbon3/Crabitat
Also you can watch some videos I've taken of them on my YouTube page, I've created a playlist with just my aquaria stuff:
http://youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0208CC143A49C079
My crab palludarium
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marusempai
- Shrimp
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- Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 8:59 pm
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Wow I am impressed, I've always kind of wanted to try fiddler crabs, but couldn't figure out a way to give them sand. Do they breed for you?
On the keeping warm in a power outage, I've never had one that long, but I have some thick fuzzy blankets that I always throw over my tanks when the power goes out, so at least the heat that's in there stays in. You probably knew about that already, but I thought I should toss it out just in case.
On the keeping warm in a power outage, I've never had one that long, but I have some thick fuzzy blankets that I always throw over my tanks when the power goes out, so at least the heat that's in there stays in. You probably knew about that already, but I thought I should toss it out just in case.
Well, they've mated before, I even got newborns in planktonic stage but they die after that because the conditions they need to mature are close to impossible to duplicate in captivity. Crabs are one creature that I think maybe a handful of dedicated aquarists have managed to breed.
I have a couple of pictures somewhere, I'm still looking for them, I caught two crabs doing the dirty
I have a couple of pictures somewhere, I'm still looking for them, I caught two crabs doing the dirty
Great setup fishbone!
Is the water freshwater, brackish, or salt water? Brackish water seems to be their preferred water type. But the documentation I read also stated to give them a freshwater pool as well.
One thing you should watch out for is, with substrate that deep, and static, if it contains enough moisture anaerobic bacteria might breed and produce methane gas which could quickly kill off your crabs.
I have read about successfull breeding in captivity, but it does take some work.
I've kept these before, they only last about a year though. I'm not sure what their natural life expectancy is though. I like to make them do the 'crab dance' by moving my fingers in jerky motions near the glass.
Good luck!
Is the water freshwater, brackish, or salt water? Brackish water seems to be their preferred water type. But the documentation I read also stated to give them a freshwater pool as well.
One thing you should watch out for is, with substrate that deep, and static, if it contains enough moisture anaerobic bacteria might breed and produce methane gas which could quickly kill off your crabs.
I have read about successfull breeding in captivity, but it does take some work.
I've kept these before, they only last about a year though. I'm not sure what their natural life expectancy is though. I like to make them do the 'crab dance' by moving my fingers in jerky motions near the glass.
Good luck!
Like I wrote above, the water is brackish with a gravity between 1.005 and 1.007. Basically 2 leveled tbsp of marine salt per gallon.
I've read about the dish of freshwater, so far I haven't done it but I might and see if I find them splashing in it. I think the reasoning behind that is to allow the crabs to regulate their ... err ... salt content? But I think that also can stem from the belief that crabs are like hermits, which is not the case. It's true that in their natural habitat they go from fresh to marine water, but they do spend their life in brackish.
I do watch out for anaerobic spots, my substrate is only a finger deep, just enough to cover the bottom and then a bit some, no more than an inch I think. So far so good, and pool filter sand actually doesn't compact as regular sand does. The grain is larger.
Their life expectancy is about 2-3 years. I think you just ended up with mature crabs, if your conditions were ideal, and they were already maybe a year or two old. The way to tell their age is by how frequent they moult. If they do so roughly once every 2-3 months, they're relatively young. As they get old, they moult less frequent, about two, 3 times a year I believe.
I've seen a MONSTER red claw crab at one of my local fish stores. It was a sesarma bidens and the darn thing was about 4 inches in diameter! Absolutely ginormous. I talked to the owner and he said an aquarist brought it in because it was eating his fish. According to him, the thing was at least 4 years old. A freak of nature, no doubt. I so wanted to take her in because she was being kept in the typical, totally not suitable, freshwater with no access to land, but I had no way to keep her
As far as the crab dance, my 3 males perch up on the tallest spot they can find every evening and wave their claws. They're hilarious, even when it's feeding time, you'll see a male mind his business, eat, but when a female wonders by, he DROPS everything he's doing and starts waving his claw.
ROTFL.
I've read about the dish of freshwater, so far I haven't done it but I might and see if I find them splashing in it. I think the reasoning behind that is to allow the crabs to regulate their ... err ... salt content? But I think that also can stem from the belief that crabs are like hermits, which is not the case. It's true that in their natural habitat they go from fresh to marine water, but they do spend their life in brackish.
I do watch out for anaerobic spots, my substrate is only a finger deep, just enough to cover the bottom and then a bit some, no more than an inch I think. So far so good, and pool filter sand actually doesn't compact as regular sand does. The grain is larger.
Their life expectancy is about 2-3 years. I think you just ended up with mature crabs, if your conditions were ideal, and they were already maybe a year or two old. The way to tell their age is by how frequent they moult. If they do so roughly once every 2-3 months, they're relatively young. As they get old, they moult less frequent, about two, 3 times a year I believe.
I've seen a MONSTER red claw crab at one of my local fish stores. It was a sesarma bidens and the darn thing was about 4 inches in diameter! Absolutely ginormous. I talked to the owner and he said an aquarist brought it in because it was eating his fish. According to him, the thing was at least 4 years old. A freak of nature, no doubt. I so wanted to take her in because she was being kept in the typical, totally not suitable, freshwater with no access to land, but I had no way to keep her
As far as the crab dance, my 3 males perch up on the tallest spot they can find every evening and wave their claws. They're hilarious, even when it's feeding time, you'll see a male mind his business, eat, but when a female wonders by, he DROPS everything he's doing and starts waving his claw.
ROTFL.
Sorry about that, I missed your reference to salt content. It's likely that my crab was older, it was given to me by a friend who didn't have the space to keep it properly. He bought it on a whim and had it in a communal tank, without means to easily get out of water.
I also like my crayfish and prawns, they also show great personality with attracting mates and feeding.
I also like my crayfish and prawns, they also show great personality with attracting mates and feeding.
Re: My crab palludarium
This is a little beyond where I'm at right now, but cool! Crabs are cool for sure... I know this is an older post, but did you ever figure out a back-up plan for power outages?fishbone wrote:Hello everyone, I thought I'd show off my crab palludarium.
It is a 75 gallon tank which I divided in half basically. Half is land, half is water. The height is roughly 6 inches which gives me, for the water side, 10 gallons approximately. What I had done was had a piece of glass cut to size, which I glued in place using pure aquarium silicone. I then placed some plastic netting I had laying around to allow the crabs to easily climb on the piece of glass. The sand that I have used is pool supplies sand.
The tank is kept at 73*F using a good'ol 40w ceramic lamp. The water is kept at around 77*F using a 50w heater. For a filter I use a Tetra Whisper internal filter rated for 10 gallon aquariums. Humidity inside is at around 70% and water gravity is 1.005 to about 1.007. Yes, this is a brackish set-up.
I currently have 8 happy fiddler crabs, 5 females and 3 males. As you will see in the picture album, there's plenty of hiding places and they all seem to enjoy themselves. The whole set-up has been up and running for about 3 months now. You will be able to see in the slideshow how I've put everything together and how the whole project went along.
Without further ado, here it is! I look forward to hearing your comments and any suggestions you might have. What I'm working on now is a back-up plan to keep everything warm in the winter in case of a power outage that lasts several hours. Last year we had one that lasted almost 20.
http://picasaweb.google.com/fishbon3/Crabitat
Also you can watch some videos I've taken of them on my YouTube page, I've created a playlist with just my aquaria stuff:
http://youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0208CC143A49C079
Re: My crab palludarium
Luckily I never had to use the back-up plan. I have a computer UPS battery which is capable of running the entire set-up for 3 hours and that includes the 60w ceramic heater. If it lasted more than that, I'd probably take the crabs out of the tank, place them in a 5.5 gallon tank and keep them warm that way 