Sally Lightfoot laying eggs??

[don103]

I have a few very healthy Sally Lightfoot crabs in my NC24 and just a few minutes ago as I was watching my tank a lightfoot crab stood on top of my rock and started shaking and the plate under its body opened up and what I believe was thousands of eggs came out.She's done it four times now!Does anyone know if thats how they reproduce?Really cool to see this and the fish are going crazy trying to eat all the eggs!
Don

 

[LeslieH]

Male & female crabs mate. The female broods the fertilized eggs in a chamber on the underside of her abdomen until they reach a certain point of development. At that point the female will release them using the method you noticed and the larvae become free swimming pelagic juveniles. They undergo several stages of development (all with different names like zoea and metazoea) which are often bizarre in appearance and nothing like an adult. Eventually the babies turn into miniature adults and settle on the bottom. The reason why tanks aren't overrun by crabs is that the pelagic larvae are skimmed off or end up as fish food. On the other hand, amphipods & isopods all have direct development and can rapidly increase in a tank The attached eggs are brooded by the females until they have become miniature versions of the adults. After release the babies immediately take up benthic life so many more of them survive to become reproductive adults.