Breeding, its been said before but...

[blaze88]

Serously! I think if we want our addicting habit to be a substainable one (esp for straws and indos etc.) we need to develop an effective breeding program for crabs. I had plans a while ago, but the more and more I think, the more I think that we need to brain storm about this subject.

So here are my notes so far;

The food will have to have every vitamin and mineral and be balanced.

The fresh water will have to be aquarium quality, with a dechlorinatior that nutralises and breaks chlorine or chlorinates.

The salt water should be real ocean water, not IO or any other stuff like that.

The fresh water should be in pools like in the wild and the salt at one end of the aquarium with a bubbler.

The bubbler should be on a timer of as short as possible to represent waves/tides.

The sand should have dry mangrove type sand, moulting sand and to damp for moulting sand. All in order of the closest to the salt water.

There should be climbs and hides furthest from the salt water to simulate mangroves.

The salt water should be heated to 80 f.

Thats all I can think of as far as main tank

for the babies there already is established reasurch but all the reasurch is from wild crabs caught with eggs already.

[blaze88]

OOOh I forgot about light

All heat is from above lighting. There are UVB/A lamps that give crabs what reptile enthusiasts say is the most nessicary part of lizards.

[Guest]

I don't really know much about this subect, as far as the details of what it takes to sustain the larva to ant sized, ready for life on land crabs, but I agree that it's important for those who would spend the money and engery to try this.

There have been several of us hobbiests who have had crabs actually breed in their tanks (meaning the female did not have eggs already). Don't ask me how it happened, or what could be done to encourage it, but I've read and seen it. If you do a search may be you could find those posts.

[Guest]

It is my sinister plan to befriend some of the marine biologists at my school and convince them to do some of their graduate research in Florida and other such hermit crab habitats to find out exactly what hermit crabs need to breed successfully, and what they're missing in captivity.

So far I kind of know a guy who likes fish.

It's a work-in-progress.

In all seriousness, from what I've read it's only been people who have kept their crabs in outdoor enclosures that have gotten the females to lay/carry eggs. Some of them even hatched, but apparently the conditions weren't right. I'm sure that as more research is done, it will become easier--I actually am betting on it, and investing quite a lot into a good setup now so years down the road I wouldn't have to spend a lot at once to breed the little guys.

I think we're all on the right track, what with emulating their natural environments as closely as we can. It's really only a matter of time and research. Most of that research will have to be done in the natural habitat, however...which goes back to my plan of enticing grad students to live in Florida for months at a time. It shouldn't be THAT difficult...

[Jedediah]

Here's an essay on successfully breeding them in captivity, written by an Autralian crab keeper with a lot of experience with saltwater tanks.
http://rapidshare.com/files/21834925/ke ... s.pdf.html

To download it, you click on the "free" button, choose a server on the next site and enter the code. Then click on the download button.

[blaze88]

I also think that we need to look at what the weather chanel says for sunrise and sunset times in florida so that the lights can be timed exactly so.

[blaze88]

Mabey lunar cycles have an effect on crab breeding too. Two night glow lamps may also be nessicary with turning both on at a full-fullish moon, one for 1/2 or 1/2ish moons and none on for new-newish moons.

These would have to follow the actual moon cycles outside, turning these lamps on for the cycles almost exactly.

The Sun lamps (heat+UVB/As) would need to be on an exact Florida rise/set cycle so simulate the diffrent amounts of sunlight durring diffrent seasons.

The heat lamp would also have to switch out like they do with reptile burmation cycles. The heat lamp would need 3 diffrent wattages. The hottest (100 perhaps?, depending on tank size) would be for the summer days, medium tempature (75 watt?) would be for spring and fall and coolist would be for winter (50 watt?). All of the changing would be a direct result of the actual tempatures in florida of the season (ie look when you see a huge change in tempature in florida)

[Guest]

I also think that we need to look at what the weather chanel says for sunrise and sunset times in florida so that the lights can be timed exactly so.

Hmm, unless you've got a better timer than I do, that would involve resetting the timer every single day, since sunrise and sunset are different every day. And even after sunset there is still some light, just like just before sunrise there is light, so emulating sunrise and sunset exactly would be really difficult. I'd say as long as there is some sort of cycle, and the length of days are roughly equivalent to the length of days when their breeding time is (say, April-July), that should be sufficient. Of course I don't know, but that's how zoos get their other animals to mate.

[blaze88]

The night lights could be a dimmer wattage light and a brighter light so they could switch off in a cycle like so;

dimmer light=1
brighter light=2

The exact amount of days for these cycles would still have to be worked out.

none

1

2

12

2

1

none

or here is anternative if another "2" light was purchased

none

1

2

12

22

12

2

1

none

The moon also rises and sets simmalary to the sun because of the rotation of the Earth. The lights should be turned off for however long the ammount of time the moon is not visable in the sky each day. (11 hours)

so the lights should be on a 14/11 on/off cycle besides a long term on/off cycle.

[blaze88]

Hmm, unless you've got a better timer than I do, that would involve resetting the timer every single day, since sunrise and sunset are different every day. And even after sunset there is still some light, just like just before sunrise there is light, so emulating sunrise and sunset exactly would be really difficult. I'd say as long as there is some sort of cycle, and the length of days are roughly equivalent to the length of days when their breeding time is (say, April-July), that should be sufficient. Of course I don't know, but that's how zoos get their other animals to mate.

Thats a good point. I was thinking resetting the timer every 3rd day or something, and there still would be ambiant city/own home light to help with sunrise/set. I would just go for a regular cycle of seasons as most animals breed on, but still, we really never have seen hcs breedunder that situation, they have always been outdoor cages.

[Willow]

On the Equator, daylight is exactly 12 hours, every day of the year. Since hermies mostly live near the Equator, a 12-hour day/night cycle would probably suffice. If a species we want to try to breed lives substantially father from the Equator than other species, we'd have to take that into consideration. But of course Florida timing would only work for PPs.

[blaze88]

I think breeding PPs are the first step since they are the hardiest, most common and the most reasurched.