Freshwater Crab advice?

[colojimb]

Just got a couple of freshwater crabs and have a couple of questions;

What should I feed them, in a common tropical aquarium?

We've got a male and a female - will they breed?

They are living in a 30 gal tank with Platys, Mollies, and Neons - will the crabs hurt them or get hurt by the fisH?

Thanks for any advice!

Jim B.
Colorado Springs

 

[vampie]

First off, are you sure they're freshwater crabs?

Chances are you got either a fiddler crab or a red claw crab, which are brackish and highly terrestrial.

 

[keiferd]

they're probably red claw fiddlers which are freshwater and will die soon if they don't have access to the surface.

 

[Bobnova]

Last i checked there were very very few genuinely fresh water crabs, and they were horribly expensive and from australia.

Odds are good they're actually brackish crabs being sold as freshwater crabs. Thats par for the course.


Crabs will eat quite literally anything they can get a hold of, and do a large part of their hunting at night when fish are sleeping.
Their favorite trick is to sneak up on sleeping fish and lead off by chopping their tail off.
Then eating the now-immobile fish starting from the tail end.

Not exactly community friendly things crabs.

Plus the brackish bit of course.

 

[keiferd]

Crabs will eat quite literally anything they can get a hold of, and do a large part of their hunting at night when fish are sleeping.
Their favorite trick is to sneak up on sleeping fish and lead off by chopping their tail off.
Then eating the now-immobile fish starting from the tail end.

Not exactly community friendly things crabs.

Plus the brackish bit of course.

That is the most rediculous thing I've heard. Even if a crab manages to cut a a fishes tail off it would still be able to elevate itself to where the crab can't consume it alive. They are scavengers, they may harrass some fish and possibly eat some fry if they get a chance (unlikely); even so, there are no "true" freshwater fully aquatic crabs.

 

[vampie]

I'd have to agree with keiferd, I'd kept crabs with small and slow fish, including fry, and they've never harmed any of them.

 

[Bobnova]

Your results may vary.
You'll have a hard time proving that crabs won't eat sleeping fish though.

And an even harder time with the rest of my post above.

 

[keiferd]

you'd have a harder time proving that they do eat sleeping fish, unless you have a video to enlighten me.

 

[Bobnova]

I'd have an easier time of it if the search for the forums here wasn't broken. It's not helping much

 

[syddakyd]

for one thing, there are true freshwater crabs in rivers such as the amazon.

second of all you are right if saying he more then likely has red claws or fiddlers which do best in lightly brackish and with land access

3rdly, fish @ night are slow and zoned out so they make for easy targets.