Red-Clawed Crab?

[raptorrex]

Good job i read this first.. Was going to get one of these guys but wont now.. dont think my frogs would last long

your frogs would be ok. RCC dont hunt. and will only eat dead or dying fish.
but your crabs wouldn't be. they need brackish water.

 

[grayshark1956]

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

 

[raptorrex]

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

brackish water (made from Marine salt) is vital for crabs like the RCC.
but then so is more land than water.
so your tank, cant work (over the long run) anyway.

if you are keeping fish too. they can only be Brackish fish.
so again, your tank cant work.
sorry.
incidentally, crabs are, when mature, veg eaters. though they will eat anything rotting, or dead/nearly dead.
your BRACKISH fish, should be safe. as the crabs only sleep when in the water, and do all their eating on the water line, and living on land.

 

[grayshark1956]

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

brackish water (made from Marine salt) is vital for crabs like the RCC.
but then so is more land than water.
so your tank, cant work (over the long run) anyway.

if you are keeping fish too. they can only be Brackish fish.
so again, your tank cant work.
sorry.
incidentally, crabs are, when mature, veg eaters. though they will eat anything rotting, or dead/nearly dead.
your BRACKISH fish, should be safe. as the crabs only sleep when in the water, and do all their eating on the water line, and living on land.

I already know, my tank is fine, did read others keep them together. I know about brackish water and marine salt. I have a question: Just found Pro-carb Z by penn-plax, it has no directions. I tried to contact them by email but they made that difficult, will call them Monday. Anyone use this before and if so, how much do you add to tank? Someone wrote on internet and asked same thing. I thought I'd have it on hand. Thanks

To answer your comments: my crabs have alot of land, they are with brackish fish, no deaths or missing fish, environment is fine from what I read from others on internet, I already know about salt as mentioned above, tank looks outstanding! Can't stop looking at it!

 

[grayshark1956]

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

I wanted to ask if you know why these crabs turn cherry red at night? Can't find this on the internet. Hope you see this and can write if you have same thing with yours, thanks!

 

[grayshark1956]

Does anyone else own a red-clawed crab? (i think thats what theyre called, it certainly fits their description!) If so have you had any problems with it attacking other fish? I bought mine a few months ago cos the guy at the lfs said it would be absolutely fine, even with other bottom feeders etc. Anyway, these past few months ive had 2 or 3 fish disappear and, call me stupid, but i honestly didnt think it could have been the crab that had eaten them, mainly cos hes only tiny! So i peered into my tank last night to see it had killed and was eating one of my peppered corydoras! I was kinda annoyed even thought i know he was only doing what hed do in the wild by finding food and stuff you know? But at least i now know why my fish have been vanashing! So anyone else had problems?

Just found your post: I have several RCC's with my fish, no deaths or missing fish. I wondered if you or anyone knows why crabs change color? Mine were bright cherry red (only at night) but they are a brown-gray-green color in the daytime. Can't find this on internet, am hoping someone would know or have had same thing? Thanks!

 

[grayshark1956]

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

brackish water (made from Marine salt) is vital for crabs like the RCC.
but then so is more land than water.
so your tank, cant work (over the long run) anyway.

if you are keeping fish too. they can only be Brackish fish.
so again, your tank cant work.
sorry.
incidentally, crabs are, when mature, veg eaters. though they will eat anything rotting, or dead/nearly dead.
your BRACKISH fish, should be safe. as the crabs only sleep when in the water, and do all their eating on the water line, and living on land.

I wanted to write back to you: my tank is still working with same fish. I transferred RCC's to tank by themselves, its brackish. They never did destroy anything. They may have nibbled on one plant but never bothered my fish.

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

brackish water (made from Marine salt) is vital for crabs like the RCC.
but then so is more land than water.
so your tank, cant work (over the long run) anyway.

if you are keeping fish too. they can only be Brackish fish.
so again, your tank cant work.
sorry.
incidentally, crabs are, when mature, veg eaters. though they will eat anything rotting, or dead/nearly dead.
your BRACKISH fish, should be safe. as the crabs only sleep when in the water, and do all their eating on the water line, and living on land.

I still have them and they're all fine. These crabs did not destroy anything maybe because they had each other.

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

I wanted to ask if you know why these crabs turn cherry red at night? Can't find this on the internet. Hope you see this and can write if you have same thing with yours, thanks!

Update- Yep, I am doing something right, too.

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

brackish water (made from Marine salt) is vital for crabs like the RCC.
but then so is more land than water.
so your tank, cant work (over the long run) anyway.

if you are keeping fish too. they can only be Brackish fish.
so again, your tank cant work.
sorry.
incidentally, crabs are, when mature, veg eaters. though they will eat anything rotting, or dead/nearly dead.
your BRACKISH fish, should be safe. as the crabs only sleep when in the water, and do all their eating on the water line, and living on land.

Raptorrex- why did you send me the same message so many times? Just wondering.

Good job i read this first.. Was going to get one of these guys but wont now.. dont think my frogs would last long

I meant to answer sooner: after observing both, I would not house crabs with frogs like the store did. Frogs don't appreciate crabs at all!

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

brackish water (made from Marine salt) is vital for crabs like the RCC.
but then so is more land than water.
so your tank, cant work (over the long run) anyway.

if you are keeping fish too. they can only be Brackish fish.
so again, your tank cant work.
sorry.
incidentally, crabs are, when mature, veg eaters. though they will eat anything rotting, or dead/nearly dead.
your BRACKISH fish, should be safe. as the crabs only sleep when in the water, and do all their eating on the water line, and living on land.

I figured out the color change of bright red at night: its from emotion. This particular crab was obviously responding to another with a reaction of turning bright red. Either male and female interaction, territory, food, or fish.

Good job i read this first.. Was going to get one of these guys but wont now.. dont think my frogs would last long

your frogs would be ok. RCC dont hunt. and will only eat dead or dying fish.
but your crabs wouldn't be. they need brackish water.

They do, a great reason to never house crabs and frogs together. Brackish fish are ok with brackish crabs.

Hey guys, this showed up on a google search and i thought would comment-
i have had RCC before with several different fish (red-eye tetra, neon tetra, diamond tetra and black phantom tetra) and they all got along fine with absolutely no problems however my one problem was with the crabs themselves- they died fairly quickly. after about three seperate lots i gave up but have recently decided to try again but with no fish and slowly adding marine salt as I have heard they like slightly brackish water but do not really know whether to add plants or anything else, any advice?

they need land, as well as brackish water.

How much land? At the moment i just have a big rock with three ramps with one above water they can get on top of and they can get to the very top of my heater which is poking out of the water, they can also scale the pipes for my air rock, heater, and filter but there is definitely no way they can get out.

ideally, 2/3 land and 1/3 water.
land should be of sand with rocks and deccor to suite.
sand needs to be damp.

Yea, the last time i had crabs i tried having a sand beach but it did not really work because it got very dirty very quickly.
By the way, one of my RCC is female and today it has gone very pale but seems healthy otherwise, is this a sign she is going to shed her skin? If so, what can I do to help her?

unfortunately, its a bit more complicated than just having sand, to make land.

pale shells are, normally, a sign of bad health. as far as my experience goes anyway.i dont recognise it as a sign of moulting. unless the moult is failing. and the crab can not shed.
there is not much you can do to help. appart from keeping them in the correct environment.

i was worried about that

I only bought them two days ago from the shop and she does appear to be getting a little bit darker, maybe there is a chance she is just feeling a bit ill because of previous poor treatment, because as great as that shop is the crabs are not in the best enviroment (They are kept in a very small, very cramped tank with lots of crabs with extremely little if any access to land, just the filter and heater pipe above water- not to mention it is completely frshwater).

By the way this is a Shortened URL to a picture of my set-up, does it look okay to you?:

I discovered these crabs just don't do well in captivity...there's no substitute for the wild. Their conditions have to be like exactly correct or they fail quickly.

Good job i read this first.. Was going to get one of these guys but wont now.. dont think my frogs would last long

Take it from me: frogs really don't appreciate these crabs, I would not ever house them together. I wish the store wouldn't either. They do because they don't want more tanks to clean. Frogs are so dossile and they get along with each other fine...the more the merrier. I have 4 FB's and there is nothing but peace with them. The crabs are a different story: they don't attack except each other, they are very territorial!

 

[grayshark1956]

Hey guys, this showed up on a google search and i thought would comment-
i have had RCC before with several different fish (red-eye tetra, neon tetra, diamond tetra and black phantom tetra) and they all got along fine with absolutely no problems however my one problem was with the crabs themselves- they died fairly quickly. after about three seperate lots i gave up but have recently decided to try again but with no fish and slowly adding marine salt as I have heard they like slightly brackish water but do not really know whether to add plants or anything else, any advice?

Good luck with these crabs! Your method sounds logical and I have them and found these guys are so darn territorial! They never bothered my fish, just each other. Their brackish condition has to be just right or they die. They need to also be in with the right fish (fish that are brackish) and they are very entertaining, do not bother my fish, only nibbled one plant, but, boy are they feisty!

 

[grayshark1956]

I have these crabs, i keep them in with neons, mollys, and guppys, i have a nice hide hole for them to go on and i put in the catfish pellets every day, i must be doing some thing right as i have not lost a fish yet to them, they are lovely..

I have several red claw crabs in with fish and mine are okay, too. I built them a rock cave and they have driftwood which I am going to raise tomorrow, I haven't lost a fish either. What kind of water do you keep your crabs and fish in? did you add salt? if so, what kind? I read you can put in natural sea salt without iodine, just wondered what you did to your water for both crabs and fish? Thanks

brackish water (made from Marine salt) is vital for crabs like the RCC.
but then so is more land than water.
so your tank, cant work (over the long run) anyway.

if you are keeping fish too. they can only be Brackish fish.
so again, your tank cant work.
sorry.
incidentally, crabs are, when mature, veg eaters. though they will eat anything rotting, or dead/nearly dead.
your BRACKISH fish, should be safe. as the crabs only sleep when in the water, and do all their eating on the water line, and living on land.

I already know, my tank is fine, did read others keep them together. I know about brackish water and marine salt. I have a question: Just found Pro-carb Z by penn-plax, it has no directions. I tried to contact them by email but they made that difficult, will call them Monday. Anyone use this before and if so, how much do you add to tank? Someone wrote on internet and asked same thing. I thought I'd have it on hand. Thanks

To answer your comments: my crabs have alot of land, they are with brackish fish, no deaths or missing fish, environment is fine from what I read from others on internet, I already know about salt as mentioned above, tank looks outstanding! Can't stop looking at it!

I also wanted to add this since your same post keeps showing: these crabs are fine with right fish and they must have correct water or else they will die. But they also die from beating each other up. They are entertaining and ok as long as there aren't more than 2 to a tank. If you add more well, things get ugly real fast. These crabs can have a hot temper under wrong conditions especially when there are too many. If you have any questions its ok to write.

Hey guys, this showed up on a google search and i thought would comment-
i have had RCC before with several different fish (red-eye tetra, neon tetra, diamond tetra and black phantom tetra) and they all got along fine with absolutely no problems however my one problem was with the crabs themselves- they died fairly quickly. after about three seperate lots i gave up but have recently decided to try again but with no fish and slowly adding marine salt as I have heard they like slightly brackish water but do not really know whether to add plants or anything else, any advice?

Whatever you do, try and get your salt correct then don't add quite as much. They are ultra sensitive to salt and/or water and salt adjustments.

I was searching through google and i found this thread~
I found it fascinating how their fish got eaten~
honestly i own 2 Rcc but they quite menace when they try to pull my plants and eat it~ or bullying my apple snail~ using its feet to turn over the snail~
but the rest seems fine~ no dead fish~

They could be bullying your snail out of boredom but I think the real answer is they want to be boss, mine sure do.

They are little *!£%'ers.

Mine cut all my plants at the stem or just out right shredded them, killed and ate 3 tetra. Like you I only found out when I caught him with a tetra and generaly ran riot in the tank.

I took it back to the shop and they claimed it was a rogue one...

Take it from me: RCC's have a temper at times, they are territorial and want to be boss. There should never be more than 1 or 2 in same tank. They don't attack per say, they like to bully other tank mates and are real big on territory. Mine did not bother fish and only ate part of one plant. But they sure compete for who's boss!

 

[raptorrex]

[quoteI]i also wanted to add this since your same post keeps showing: these crabs are fine with right fish and they must have correct water or else they will die. But they also die from beating each other up. They are entertaining and ok as long as there aren't more than 2 to a tank. If you add more well, things get ugly real fast. These crabs can have a hot temper under wrong conditions especially when there are too many. If you have any questions its ok to write.[/quote]

As would any other creature kept in totally the wrong environment.

You may wish to spread your ignorance of the correct environment for these critters, after all you know no better.
But I don’t see any reason you should poison the knowledge of others, with you ignorance.
These guys live their waking lives on dry land, not under water.
So i will continue to post the facts whilst you watch your stock fight and die.

do you really think that if i were wrong, in any substantive way, my posts would be allowed to stand?

 

[Chad]

I love crabs and so I've spend a great deal of time on them. I have several different species in my reef tank (5 species of hermits and 5 of true crabs for about 15 crabs total in my 210 gallon reef).

Let me tell you a true story...I have a shelf at home of dried out red claw and fiddler crabs that were found dead on my floor. I've had them for years. I started out keeping crabs as a little boy, for some reason I just loved them (still do). I had hermits, fiddlers, and red claw crabs as well as crayfish. For some reason the crabs kept climbing out of the tank. They looked cool all dried out so I kept them on a shelf but stopped keeping live ones and just stuck with hermits for a while as they stayed put. Later I saw them for sale and got nostalgic so I got some. Not too long after I found them dried up on the floor again! Well, older and hopefully wiser I did some research on them to find out why. This was back before the Internet and done with books and all but I did manage to find a few links that have the same information as I learned then.

http/www.edc.uri.e...ert/fiddler.htm
http/www.chesapeak...r/fiddler_crabs
http/badmanstropic...profile101.html

What I learned was just what raptorrex is trying to explain. These are not fully aquatic animals like marine crabs are. They require land, and air. Both fiddlers and red claws are from the mud flats, salt marshes, and tidal area.