Crabs...

[Sharoane]

Hey all...are hermit or fiddler crabs okay to put in a tank of peaceful, smaller fish? I had one kill a kuhli loach once so I won't put those two together again.

Any advice?

 

[mrcrabbs]

HERMIT DO NOT.It will die. Fiddler you can and I like red claw carbs. They are really neat but be careful. If you have a nitrite or nitrate spike it will kill it. You can train your red claw crab to eat from you of tongs are something. They LOVE roast beef and chicken but mine is not to fond of shrimp.

 

[StanTheBetta]

Personally I don't think fiddler crabs are a good idea either. I'm no expert but I was looking at a couple sites on them when I was thinking about buying one and I read that if they don't have some sort of land to come out on it greatly reduces there life span and health. They could be wrong though. God only knows how many misleading betta sites there are out there. Maybe theres an invert expert reading this

 

[Teelie]

Fiddlers are harmless but they do need land, and an escape proof aquarium. No matter how infeasible it may seem, any kind of opening the size of the crab is a potential escape route.

 

[shoboy]

Hermit crabs will die. They are not a fishtank crab. They need land, not a total water submersion.

Fiddler crabs can live in your tank, but.......................

They will find a way out. Either up an airline, the filter tube, the silicone in the corners, anything that sticks into the water they can climb. I had them in every type of tank, from oscars to neons. "Most" fish can/will get eaten if cought by the crab, though a bigger fish will not.

They are GREAT bottem feeders and cleaners. They will add to a tank with a variety of fish, and they look and move cool 8)

But keep in mind, they are not just scavengers, they are predators. I have had good success with large gouromies, bala's, angels, and some afr. cichlids.

You can get stuff to "enclose" the top of your tank so they cant get out. And If you do get some, buy 1 or 2 females first, the ones with both small claws. They will do far less damage to any other fish than the males with 1 large claw. And you'll be able to tell if they can get out or not.

I had quite a few live in my Whisper 3 filter. They would climb up the intake and just chill out in the filter. They actually helped my filter packs to last longer!

 

[shoboy]

Oh yea, I had a large female crab get out of my tank. It scared my wife as it ran across my living room floor, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF MY HOUSE!!! It had to walk over 30ft. and around corners. It was in the tank at 11pm and in my living room at 9 am. The tank is a 40gal high, and the BOTTOM of the tank is 3ft off the ground, on hardwood floors. So the crab took one hell of a smack when it landed, and it still moved around my house.