DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE

blaze88 · Post by **blaze88** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 11:23 am

I have decided to be crazy.

I am attempting to breed crabs.

I have made a chart of the setup, which will probably be about 40 gallon breeder or something. The charts pretty much explain it all.

Black lines represent glass.

I will post the charts later, but does anybody have any knowledge about this?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 1:14 pm

I found a journal article where they successfully breed E's. The link is here. It may not work because I believe I had to access it through my university's library. I do have a PDF copy if you'd like it.

blaze88 · Post by **blaze88** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:14 pm

The link didn't work.

blaze88@gmail.com

if you could send me the PDF there that would be great.

I was thinking Purple Pinchers and not Es but....

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:39 pm

This might help

http://aboutlandhermitcrabs.com/content/view/22/2/

http://www.crabstreetjournal.com/articl ... tcrabs.pdf

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:46 pm

I was thinking about this very casually one day. I plan on building a 4 foot by 2 foot by 20 inch high half and half terrarium and i thought, maybe i could make the one half a beach leading up to forest bedding with cocanut fiber wrapped around pvc pipe to simulate(kinda) palm trees, with a small water fall into a little pond dish of fresh water. the beach would lead down into saltwater with a wave maker to simulated a real ocean. I have some sea grass in my reef tanks i could put in the water and maybe even have some sea horses. though the sea horses may eat the hermie babies so maybe not. anyways the longer i types this the more i want to make it.

blaze88 · Post by **blaze88** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:58 pm

Well I read that article and I thought it was great!

Here are my diagrams. PLEASE knit pick away.

stage one baby tank
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/3577/babieslc4.png

Bottom level of main tank
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/8203 ... velds1.png

Heating and Lighting of main tank
http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/9994 ... andnk3.png

accessories in main tank
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/9140 ... nd2hg9.png

2-5 stage baby tank
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/96/tanktl3.png

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:00 am

To say this is an ambitious project is an understatement. I've always known someday, someone would be successful at it! I wish you the very best of luck with this and I know you'll keep us posted on the progress.

You too Craig, if you try this I hope you document the entire process.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:39 pm

I hope that this works out and make sure you keep us updated! Did you read teh article on thecrabbagepatch.com about how that lady had hermie babies? It might be helpful.

dbolack · Post by **dbolack** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:18 pm

blaze88 wrote:I have decided to be crazy.
I am attempting to breed crabs.

Funny you should mention this. I'm doing the same research at the moment.

blaze88 · Post by **blaze88** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:16 pm

Hey, I just realised I am going to be broke, but thats whats great about being a kid, no bills!

I did some pricing today and WOAH! I also need to run frantically arround town to GOOD aquarium stores, not petsmart, with six diffrent kinds of tanks.

Also does anybody know where I can get glass cut to a custom size?

I also supose I should check my crabs genders, ooops, I only have for one because I don't like stressin them out buy coaxing them out of the shell so far and then turning them in odd positions to check for dots.

Anywho... I am still reading up, but I hope some day this is considered possible, and common practice so we can stop farming beaches and stressing ecosystems.

blaze88 · Post by **blaze88** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:46 pm

In one article all they did is find crabs on the beach and put them in a bucket with sand and ocean water.

I live in Colorado, do you think that instant ocean will work ok? People have gotten marine fish to breed in that.

Also I was going to put a wave maker on my under gravel filter, this works by turning off the filter for X amount or time and turning it on for X amount of time thus making waves.

Do you guys think this is needed, or would circulating water just be fine?

Also in the article with the bucket breeding, they had a low mortality rate until the crabs got to be in the phase just before crabs, and the phase just before that one. No crabs made it to being older. However I think perhaps their set up was bad.

I think it is actually veyr easy to breed crabs. Just the setup must be correct.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:01 pm

Very Cool! Good Luck! Hopefully we will be seeing some very cute little babies!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:02 pm

blaze88 wrote:I live in Colorado, do you think that instant ocean will work ok? People have gotten marine fish to breed in that.

EDIT: Doing some research myself (I was curious), I ran across another study that appears to be much more controlled and follows more sound testing methods that offers a different point of view about more than one marine mix. It seems IO is not quite as high in toxic metals in comparison to other marine mixes.

A very good investment when dealing with saltwater is a refractometer. Measuring the specific gravity of saltwater with swing-arm or glass hygrometers is inaccurate; the refractometer will give you exact measurements and keep the salinity from varying wildly and possibly causing problems. Here's a good example: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vie ... php?t=1886

The article that justanoob linked to are very good. One consideration that may have to be examined closer is that there is going to have to be a method of biological filtration in the saltwater, otherwise the toxic ammonia will probably kill off the zoea, unless you're going to do water changes to keep it under control. I don't know how it would work, trying to cycle the saltwater portion of the tank. It's feasible, I think, but it's something to investigate as well.

The article suggests transferring the zoea to a separate tank to grow, and that might provide you with more success in the long run.

blaze88 · Post by **blaze88** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:23 pm

I would only have the Zoea in the tank, so ammonia probably won't be a big issue. I was planning to use my beta dish I bought my beta in and taking that much water out a day. I would be able to examine for babies in the water because the cup is clear.

However many major aquariums use instant ocean, including the Mall of America Aquarium.

I guess Catalina Water Company is the way to go for me. Darn, this is getting pricey. The problem is that I still have that bag of IO. I guess I will do a mix of real and IO.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:49 pm

blaze88 wrote:I have decided to be crazy.

as you can see, we all decide to back you up with this.

lol, but good luck! i think it will be neat-o to see how this works!!!!!

HCA: Hermit Crab Association

DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE

DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE

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