Tropical Red Crabs

[norris_309]

Hi,
I have bought 2 tropical crabs & am wondering if any of you lot out there have ever owned any of these, mainly as i would like to know if there is anything else you can feed them on, besides the frozen Silver backs???

Oh & by the way...they are the biggest escape artists i've ever seen!!!

 

[CFC]

We bought some for our 5 year old once and kept them in a 10 gallon tank on their own,we found they would eat anything.We fed them on catfish pellets algea wafers bloodworms and frozen lance fish.
They are great escape artists,our son once found one in his bedroom,a easy 30 feet from the living room where the tank was,they will also nip and eat any small or slow moving fish so be careful if you plan on keeping them in a aquarium with fish.
When we bought them we were told that they need a rock or something that they can sit on out of the water because when they shed their shells they need to be able to harden them in air,how true this is i dont know but ours did like to spend some time out of the water,we gave ours back to the lfs when our son lost interest in them because the tank was more useful as quarintine tank than a crab home.

 

[Dragonslair]

I used to keep ghost crabs when I had a marine tank, so I am assuming they are going to eat the same things. As all crabs are scavangers and so will eat nearly anything. They won't eat flakes or pelleted food, other than that any meat or worms they will relish. This can lead to water pollution problems so you will need a really good filtration unit. I found that they eventually became quite a demand and so I gave them away. They are a species only animal and should not be kept with anything else otherwise you will notice your fish disappearing.

 

[Feline]

Is that the red tropical crabs u having, norris? I got 2 of these two weeks ago and put them in my quarantine tank. They behave just like what CFC said, altho they don't like fish pellets. And they do like to climb out of the water too!

They also like to fight for territory. I sometimes see the big one bullying the smaller one! But when I tried putting the smaller one into the main tank with the fishies, problems occured. It climbed into the sleeping area of my clown loaches n freaked them out. So I've to put it back to the quarantine tank.

 

[norris_309]

Thanks for all your advice, very handy to know.
Since posting i ended up going to a local shop which as you said, told me they eat pretty much anything. I ended up buying something called Crab Cuisene (sounds nice huh??) doesn't smell to good though, these are little pellet things, & they seem to eat them ok.

One likes to hog them though

 

[Pufferpack]

Try giving them sone cucumber, I have seen pics of them pushing cuce chunks aroud the tank to keep them away from the othe inhabitants

 

[Feline]

Btw, I hope ur fishies won't be so interested in the red crabs. I've seen there's one in the tank of my LFS, got cornered by at least 10 fishies (I 4got which kind of fishies they r) like the fishies trying to eat it! Then the poor crabbie retained its cool, looking up, fighting back trying to catch/attack by using the claws!! Quite funny to watch, hehe!

 

[norris_309]

They are quite funny to watch ... i've now had them for nearly 3 days, 1's nearly escaped twice
I've been putting a few of these pellets in a shallow dish at the bottom & they seem to like them, so does the shrimp thats in there too.

The fish don't tend to get too close to them (i've only got 3) which i don't blame them.
The shrimp on the other hand tries to steal food off them! brave little bugger.
all in all, they seem to be doing just fine, no casualties & the crabs don't seem to be interested in the little fish