gholland
New member
We got an adult O. mercatoris on 12/22/07 - our anniversary gift to ourselves - and she has been eating really well until the last several days, has ignored a nice emerald crab for 3 nights running, and tonight we finally decided to have a look under the rock, fearing the worst that she might be dead (she had blocked off the entrances where we usually shine the red penlight to look at her). WOW were we excited when we found she's ok, just hovering over/under a clutch of eggs!
She is definitely very protective of them- we barely saw the eggs before she covered over them so we didn't have time to get a great look at how many- maybe a dozen, probably about 8-9mm long? She's now back to "caressing" the eggs.
OK, so... She was at the LFS store for only 3-4 days before we got her, and we have had her for not quite 4 weeks. We know she was collected off the coast of Florida by friends of our LFS owner, and that she was sent to them fairly soon after she was collected.
So forgive us our ignorance, but even after reading a little bit online, we have several questions- how long would she potentially be able to store sperm packets / are these likely fertile??
Do they bother laying un-fertilized eggs?? Is there a way to tell without completely stressing her out?
We know she will probably die pretty soon, but we have no idea as to the time frame... as in a matter of days, weeks, etc?
Will she take a break to snack, or should we let the emerald crab out of jail?
What do we need to do to have the best possible outcome?? When do we transfer into little cups or is that the best thing to do?? We are so not set up for this, but if its at all likely that we might be able to raise even one baby... we're open do doing whatever we need to do.
She is definitely very protective of them- we barely saw the eggs before she covered over them so we didn't have time to get a great look at how many- maybe a dozen, probably about 8-9mm long? She's now back to "caressing" the eggs.
OK, so... She was at the LFS store for only 3-4 days before we got her, and we have had her for not quite 4 weeks. We know she was collected off the coast of Florida by friends of our LFS owner, and that she was sent to them fairly soon after she was collected.
So forgive us our ignorance, but even after reading a little bit online, we have several questions- how long would she potentially be able to store sperm packets / are these likely fertile??
Do they bother laying un-fertilized eggs?? Is there a way to tell without completely stressing her out?
We know she will probably die pretty soon, but we have no idea as to the time frame... as in a matter of days, weeks, etc?
Will she take a break to snack, or should we let the emerald crab out of jail?
What do we need to do to have the best possible outcome?? When do we transfer into little cups or is that the best thing to do?? We are so not set up for this, but if its at all likely that we might be able to raise even one baby... we're open do doing whatever we need to do.
.
