Red "clawless" Crab

[dreamweaver68]

Hiya,
Just been and bought a red crab from local petshop and the we were told the one we picked had a claw missing. As they grow back we said it was ok because we liked his/her markings. When we got home tho and put it in the tank we noticed it had BOTH claws missing and also a leg
Worried that he wouldn't be able to eat with no "hands" we rang the shop and were told he should be okay but if we went back we could have another one for free and also keep the first one. Just wanted to know what the little guy's chances are with both nippers and a leg missing.... or were they lying when they said he should be ok??

Thanks!

( Soz it's a long post.)

 

[three-fingers]

If he's in the setups in your profile, then his chances are very slim, and any other crabs you add will also suffer.

If you have them in a proper setup not listed, then it depends on how fast he sheds, you really need to make sure he can eat though.

 

[dreamweaver68]

If he's in the setups in your profile, then his chances are very slim, and any other crabs you add will also suffer.

If you have them in a proper setup not listed, then it depends on how fast he sheds, you really need to make sure he can eat though.

Thanks for replying.
He's in a 2ft coldwater tank which has 3 fantails, 4 mountain minnow, a small chinese plec and now the 2nd crab.
Can you suggest a way to make sure he's eating ok and do you think he's better in the water or maybe up on the floating platform?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[three-fingers]

Red claw crabs are brackish crabs that spend a lot of time on land. They need to come up onto land, otherwise they will drown.

Your going to need a separate tank, heater (they are also tropical), marine aquarium salt (very important to make the water brackish, the stuff for freshwater tanks is useless) and a hydrometer to measure the salinity. Ideally at least half of the tank should be land, preferably sand as they seem to like shifting it around.

For now, if you cant get a tank yet, a decent sized floating platform with decent sized dish of brackish water they can submerse themselves in is fine temporarily, but do this in your bigger tropical tank.

Without the minerals in marine aquarium salt, your crabs are highly likely to suffer moulting complications and die sometime soon, and the one missing the claws have very little chance of regenerating them.

You should always at least google an animal before purchasing, lfs are great at telling little fibs about an animals requirements, but I think most really just aren't really sure what the animal needs .

 

[dreamweaver68]

Red claw crabs are brackish crabs that spend a lot of time on land. They need to come up onto land, otherwise they will drown.

Your going to need a separate tank, heater (they are also tropical), marine aquarium salt (very important to make the water brackish, the stuff for freshwater tanks is useless) and a hydrometer to measure the salinity. Ideally at least half of the tank should be land, preferably sand as they seem to like shifting it around.

For now, if you cant get a tank yet, a decent sized floating platform with decent sized dish of brackish water they can submerse themselves in is fine temporarily, but do this in your bigger tropical tank.

Without the minerals in marine aquarium salt, your crabs are highly likely to suffer moulting complications and die sometime soon, and the one missing the claws have very little chance of regenerating them.

You should always at least google an animal before purchasing, lfs are great at telling little fibs about an animals requirements, but I think most really just aren't really sure what the animal needs .

Thanks once again for the help.
I did check out the crabs on google but there are so many sites and most of them vary in advice and pointers that it's hard to know which ones to follow.
Think i'll just stick to FF from now on for info. Cheers