Celebes Jungle Crabs

[KJD]

I am beginner Vampire Crab hobbyist and have a 45x45x45 tank, 20:80 water land setup, lots of natural hiding places the odd plant. I originally bought 5, but 3 have died, I believe due to the tank being too cold, but now the tank is a regular 28 deg C, water same, so I am now looking to restock with some more.

However, I have noticed that the 2 remaining hardly eat anything. I have tried them on Hikari crab cuisine, JBL Crab pellets, live crickets, dead crickets, bloodworm, lance fish, cucumber, grape, raw mince, but nothing ever seems to be touched.

Can I have any advice on what to feed them?

Thanks!

[Mustafa]

You're offering them the right food....they're just not in good shape. Your animals did not die because of temperature...they died because of stress during capture, export, import, transfer to the dealer, shipping to you..etc...etc.. These animals go through a lot. My Mandarin crabs survived air temperatures down to 37 degrees by the way. All you can really do is wait....your crabs may recover, or they may just die off...it's just not in your hands unfortunately.

[Guba]

I think crickets are too agile for the crabs. My crabs will take mealworms that have been dropped in front of them. Small mealworms are perfect for them. I also keep a culture of flightless/wingless fruitflies in with them. When I slice a grape in half and drop it in, the fruitflies will gather on it. But I never see any fruitfly maggots, I think the crabs like those too.

I haven't seen any piggybacking behavior in mine. But I think I may have broken up a mating ritual the other day. DOH! I found a pair locked together with their claws and definately herd some clicking from claw snapping going on. Being the curious me, I caught them both to check if they where the same sex. They weren't...so much for that. I hope I see more young ones, but I don't think so in the near future.

They are secretive, but one of mine will stay put and take mealworms out of my tweezers.

[orin]

I have some young captive-bred ones I just bought. I am wondering if I should house each in a deli-cup or place them together in a larger container. Right now they are together. Anyone familiar with the rates of cannibalism when they molt. One arrived missing a front claw which could possibly be from a tankmate having a snack during its last molt.

[Guba]

Hey orin, I haven't observed any cannibalism. If they do it's not near as bad as shrimp do. They like some space and keeping them in a deli cup is a bad idea. Males are intolerant of each other, so give them a bit more space. There seems to be a pecking order and will fight to establish dominance.

[G4e8cko]

Sorry to necropost, I know this is an older thread. I have a couple questions about vampire crabs, and I was hoping more experienced keepers could help me. First of all, how do you sex them? I have read that the females supposedly have a larger abdomen than the males. Would this be referring to the part of the shell that opens when they molt? Sorry if this question seems obvious- I'm more familiar with fiddlers, and it's hard to miss the male's big claw with them! My local pet store carries these guys, but they know next to nothing about them (I think they're probably imported, too). I bought two several months ago, and one died within a week. The other still seems healthy, though, so I have plucked up the courage to try to get a group going. I would like to have only one male, though, so any advice on sexing them would be appreciated.

[Guba]

Sexing them is easy. Just put them into a clear deli container with the lid on. They are jumping crabs after all! Raise the container above your head so you can look at thier underside. Crabs have "tails" just like shrimp, it is called a pleon. Unlike shrimp, crabs keep it folded against thier body. A males pleon is very narrow. The females pleon is a lot wider and the edges of it will be close to the legs. You'll see the differences!

Currently I'm on my 4th generation! I found 18 crablets in the 3th generation and 19 crablets in the 4th generation. I just found a female with a "full" looking pleon, so I'll have to keep my eye out for more crablets. So far, every time I lose a female, crablets seem to appear. I'm not sure if this is coincidence or part of thier life cycle.

I tried setting up another tank for these. It didn't quite go as I thought it would. I had a thick 4 inch layer of sand for them to crawl on. They then proceded to dig tunnels, some of which were at least 6 inches in length before I lost sight. They would crawl into the tunnels and not come out, at least during the day when I could watch. Feeding became a problem, as I couldn't tell if they were getting enough food. The males do seem territorial, and in this tank I had a big 2nd generation male, one female and four more younger males. The only crab that came out and about, was the big male. Six crabs in, three crabs out. So much for that tank.
So I put the survivors into a newly set up 55 gallon. The big male finally died in the beginning of May this year. Of the second generation, I only have one male left.

[Newjohn]

Are there any Updates or Pictures.

These are very interesting creatures.
I had a small colony a few years ago.
Sad to say, NO offspring.

[Mustafa]

I actually have lots of pictures, including one of my females carrying her young on the back, but I just have not gotten around to sorting them out. Plus, my last pair (which I had bred myself) died a few months ago (seems like they escaped their little container and dried out) and I have not gotten any new Geosesarma species. I have been really concentrating on expanding my shrimp collection and I am allocating every last bit of space to them.

What remains to be said is that the particular species I was breeding is extremely secretive, spending almost all of its time in a self dug hole in the substrate. There was one exception, though. I had a male that actually became tame and would come to the front glass every time it saw me and motion with its claws that it wants food. That is some very extraordinary behavior for such a simple creature. It even got used to hand feeding and it would directly pick the food from my tweezers.

The babies do grow extremely slowly, though, but it's fun to watch them grow. I would recommend at least a ten gallon, with lots of hiding places, for a pair or trio (or maximum 2 pairs) as all the species of Geosesarma appear to be territorial. This is especially true if you want the babies to grow up alongside the parents...the larger the tank, the better.

Are there any Updates or Pictures.

These are very interesting creatures.
I had a small colony a few years ago.
Sad to say, NO offspring.

[Newjohn]

Mustafa,
Thanks for the information.

Are there any other Forum Members that have kept these ?

[Guba]

I can try to get some pictures uploaded. I currently have 2 tanks of them going. I just discovered crablets in one tank yesterday. I thought the female had died becouse I couldn't find her since last december.

[Guba]

Here's a picture of one of the crablets. It's on coarse aquarium foam, so you can see just how tiny they actually are. They won't color up until they get mature. Of all the pictures I took, this one was the best. My camera isn't very good.

[Newjohn]

Thanks for sharing the picture.
They sure are tiny.

How many crablets do you have ?