Porcelain Crabs

[britzles]

Does anyone have any real information about breeding porcelain crabs? Or any other crabs that is? I've googled but they don't go into much detail about their reproduction and larva stages.

 

[billsreef]

I've not heard of anyone trying to breed porcelain crabs. I expect they breed much like other marine crabs. The female will incubate the eggs by carrying them under the abdominal flap until the hatch. Larva will be plakntonic, in a planktonic form called zoea. While in the planktonic stage they will go through several stages before settling out as a recognizable crab. Likely first food sources are rotifers, copepod nauplii and brine shrimp nauplii.

 

[britzles]

Which do you think would be a better food source for the larva; rotifers or phytoplankton???

 

[billsreef]

While some crustacean larvae are known to eat some of the larger phyto species, I'd try rotifers first.

 

[britzles]

I'm going to try to go about breeding them similar to the way peppermint shrimp are being reared. However how can I tell the difference between males and females??? I read somewhere that the male to female ratio is 1:1.5.

 

[GreshamH]

Contact Dr Jonathon Stillman @ http://online.sfsu.edu/~stillmaj/

This is right up his alley.

 

[britzles]

Thx!