My Pregnant Emerald Crab

[SuperflyFanatic]

I have a male and female Emerald Crab (Mithrax), and they have been getting busy for the past few weeks. Naturally, the female is now packing heat with her belly flap open a bit most of the time now, filled with what appears to be tiny eggs (like a swarm of caviar).

I've removed my charcoal filter so any released eggs don't get caught up there and perish. I have a nice collection of live rock and live sand, so there's plenty of natural filtration otherwise.

Does anyone have any insight for this?

Any concerns, good or bad?

How many baby crabs might I expect?

Any feeding concerns with them?

I've been trying to get pictures of her open belly (the female chest plate swings open to expose her female parts and store the eggs), but she's being very protective and hiding a lot. But as the days go by, she's leaving it more and more open.

[Jimbo]

Hi just wanted to

Welcome

you, don't know much about crab propogation, but am interested on how it turns out

[Geoff]

Welcome to the TRT!!


most crabs have a planktonic larvae stage. unfortunately our closed systems are not very condusive to the survival of planktonic life forms. they are generally eaten up, but most likely they will starve because of the correct size planktonic life forms in the tank for them to feed. hopefully someone else will chime in and say correct me if i am wrong.

G~

[F100d]

so has any here ever bred emerald crabs? if so, how'd ya do it?

or maybe if you have had new baby crabs appear in your tank, what was your setup like?

[SuperflyFanatic]

BTW, mine is an Eclipe System 12 (12 gallon tank). If anyone else has bred Emerald Crabs, please let us know how ya did it!

[SuperflyFanatic]

I found from asking questions at a local aquarium store that typically the early stages of crab life from birth being successful are just not that possible in aquariums.

Chances are they will get crushed or mangled in one of the pumps, or my peppermint shrimp will make a nice snack out of them. So chances are there isn't anything I can do to make this successful.

On the other hand, I'm starting to see some tube worms around the tank. So I'm thinking perhaps it's possible. We'll see. I'll report if anything good happes with baby emeralds.

[Geoff]

about the only chance you have would be to have a well established tank setup only for the emerald crabs. remove the crabs the moment the eggs are released and hope. it is probable that the crab larvae would be eaten. some feather dusters are capable of eating the planktonic larvae of the crabs.

G~

[SuperflyFanatic]

BTW, I checked out your mantle tank, that is one amazing setup!

It's given me a bunch of ideas too for the future. I'm also waiting to get into a house before I invest in a massive tank. Right now I just have the 12 gallon salt water tank and I'm working on a 5 gallon fresh water.

Indeed the best advice is to take it slowly. Everyone keeps asking me what I have and I answer "nothing yet, the water is still cycling", or "I don't have the right lighting for coral yet" and most everyone looks at me like I'm nuts.

The last thing I want to do is get a bunch of beautiful coral and creatures and have them die from my impatience and inexpierence.

Very nice information on your website though, much appreciated!

[Geoff]

thank you.

i hope to have a major update real soon. with all of my DIY stuff up. if it was not for my 55 crashing i would not have had anything in the tank but rock for 3 months.

there is a lot of cool stuff on LR, i find myself looking at that as much as the rest of the tank. i love to see new critters.

you have a lot of good people in your area. in Rick O's signature he has a link to the atlanta area reefers. i hope to catch one of these in the future.

G~

[SuperflyFanatic]

Myself and the guy that posted here (F100d) are most likely going to join with the Atlanta Reef Club, looks like a really good group of people with tons of knowledge. Most of the aquarium stores we visited said they have are are going to host one of their meetings spoke positively about the club.

[CatinHat]

Keep us posted on those crabs! I have a cleaner shrimp that carries around a batch of eggs every now and then. And when she lets her package go it's like feeding time all over again. I keep thinking that out of the hundreds or maybe thousands she waves out into the water I'd find one or two somewhere down the line that made it. But alas never have spotted one. As far as spotting new things I think that is the best part! My tank is two years old and I still find new things I didn't know was there or didn't put in there.

[SuperflyFanatic]

Will do.

I actually added 6 conehead cleaner snails and a beautiful baby conch last night.

The conch is quite an interesting creature, fantastic to watch him hop around the tank and eat stuff. I didn't know they had an elephant nose-like mouth, or the two beady eyes like a snail. But it's small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.

Attached is a picture of the conch and one of the snails.

[Geoff]

Wow, that is a pretty big conch. all of mine are less than 2 inches. nice colour. is that a queen or fighting conch.

G~

[SuperflyFanatic]

That one is tiny, the pic makes it look big (used a macro lens mode up close).

He's small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, maybe between 1-2" long.

The store didn't have a label other than "conch", but I think it's a fighting (too slender to be a queen, they seem to be more round).

[Geoff]

i just looked at the pic again. that is an astrea in the background not a turbo snail..

G~