strawberry crab? Behavior?

[DMBillies]

I got two strawberry crabs from Emerald Bay at the meeting because I'm a sucker for interesting creepy crawlers. Well, this morning I go downstairs and I see one hanging from my filter above the water line. I know there are a ton of tidal crabs that naturally spend plenty of time out of water and I was wondering if this is one of those types. If so, should I try to construct a way for them to more easily be able to get out of the water should they want to? If not, I guess I should move my filter so that he cannot climb onto it. Searching for strawberry crabs brings up a whole bunch of different critters, none of which look like these. Would anybody who saw them at the meeting have a guess at what the species is?

 

[fischcrazy]

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...ges?q=strawberry+crab&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&sa=N

 

[DMBillies]

I don't think that the link is the correct species (see pic below). It seems that any crab with a shade of red is called a strawberry crab on the internet, which is my main problem in finding info about them.

As you can see from the picture he climbed up my filter tube and up under the filter cover (taken off for the picture). He had been there long enough that his shell was totally dry. He's back in the tank now and doing fine, so I assume he wasn't harmed by it, but I'm just worried that they need to spend a certain amount of time out of water to survive properly. I called Emerald Bay and they couldn't find the latin name that they had ordered them under. Any body have any idea?

And yes, I know I should have done my research on them before I bought 'em, but I could not pass up the deal I got...

 

[Fishboy42]

That crab looks to me like an intertidal species -- reminds me of the genus Uca (same as fiddlers). I don't know much about them specifically, but that might explain why he is trying to get out of the water. Do either of them have claws (sometimes helpful in ID)?

-Matt

 

[DMBillies]

His claws are very small and in the picture they are tucked up into his abdomen so that you can't really see them. I would say that the claw part is shorter in length than the white tips on his legs. I'm familiar with fiddler crabs from having grown up on the Jersey shore and I would agree that they do look a lot like them except for the color and minus the one big claw. Their eyes are on stalks that tip down to the side into those little groves just like the fiddlers I'm familiar with. One big difference I noticed is that, while these guys hide a lot of the time, they aren't at all afraid of me or my hand. Fiddlers (at least wild ones) won't let you get anywhere near them. I had to physically push him back into the water.

If they are intertidal (as I suspected from this behavior) is it necessary for them to be able to get out of the water? If so, ideas on how to make it so they can would be appreciated...

 

[gflat65]

Ypu could stack a rock so that it just slightly sticks out of water. My 200 gallon rock quarry has pieces sticking out almost all of the time with no issues (it doesn't really dry out).

 

[DMBillies]

Good idea... only problem with that is that my tank is only 12" front to back and ~22" tall. Have you ever seen that guy that stacks like 200 pint glasses and tries to balance them... that's my live rock :lol:

 

[gflat65]

Got any branch rock?

 

[DMBillies]

Nope, but that's a great idea and I know the Critter has had some. I'll have to see if they have any long straight pieces in the 6-8" range.

 

[fischcrazy]

even though it doesnt have a big claw, it could be a fiddler. females have two regular size claws. i used to keep some with my mudskipper. Can you sex it? if its a female it may be a fiddlerI


have some extra branch rock that dont use anymore. your welcome to have it, if you need it

 

[DMBillies]

I know how to tell blue crab males from females, but their "equipment" didn't look very similar (I looked when I put them in the tank). I know that every crab at the fish store (probably about 15 crabs) had the same size claws.

 

[eyebedam]

I know this is off topic but hows the shrimp raising coming along?

 

[DMBillies]

eyebedam: Thanks for asking. I still haven't had any very significant losses that I have noticed (i.e., there are still more than I can count, but while they are growing, they are still really hard to see unless they are high up in my water column). I was going to try to get another picture in a few days and put it in the original thread just to keep up on it. It'll be a month tomorrow since the larvae were released.

 

[eyebedam]

Are you gonna be selling any at a discount?

 

[DMBillies]

If all that are still alive continue to make it, I'm going to have to get rid of quite a few of them, so I figured I'd offer them up on RC when the time came. We'll see how many I have by the time they get large enough to sell (probably a couple more months yet based on their current size), but I imagine they will be at quite a significant savings compared to other sources. I'm not in this to make a bunch of money, I just thought it would be fun and all I'd really like to get out of it is to be able to acquire a few more adults.

 

[luckyfish]

Regarding using branch rock; Premium Aquatics has dry Tonga branch (not alive at all they say) for 2.50 a lb. Shipping could be cheap given it's not going to die off. Might be a more reasonable alternative over the Critter if time is not a signifficant factor.