HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hi folks,
Well it seems that my 4yr old captive bred males may well be parents. I have one other male but he and 3 smaller girls have been in a different tank all this year. I put them back into the big tank about 2 weeks ago and there was a lot of activity.
I saw one of the big girls on the glass edge of the salt pool on Sunday night 14th March. On Monday morning I woke up to find zoea in the pool.IF it was her that deposited the eggs then they are sort of 2nd generation captive bred... The two captive bred males are the only males in the tank.

Today is Day 4 and I have zoea II and all seem to be doing well even though I froze them on monday night by only having a small aquarium heater in the bath. Temp dropped to 22c. Then I took 4Litres out and replaced with 4 L of hot tap water... This took the temp up to 35c!!!! Poor little zoea have survived freezing and boiling and are still tail flicking.

I have set up my transition tank (remember Aussies only spend about 2 weeks in the water) and rinsed all the tiny shells. It is a small batch (under 500 I think) so hopefully the lower numbers will help keep more alive (if I don't kill them somehow first...

Its been a while as my last lot are now 4yrs old so I'm a bit rusty but it seems like it is not as bad this time round..

Keep your fingers and toes and eyes crossed for me and my poor little charges..

I know its not the first time I've said this to you, but I'm incredibly excited for you and hope the zoea does well!

Omg, how exciting!!


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Congrats!


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Your captive-bred crabs are breeding? How exciting! Good luck!


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JoeHermits wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 18, 2021 9:10 pm

Your captive-bred crabs are breeding? How exciting! Good luck!

Well there is a very strong possibility.I have 3 males and one of them is not a captive bred one. It and 3 smaller females were in a seperate tank to the 2 captive bred males and 3 larger females. I am almost certain that the mother is the larger female I saw balancing on the edge of the salt pool on Sunday night. BUT seeing as they have all been missing in action for ages (well not being seen by me) I had no idea I even had any females with eggs.

2 weeks ago I moved the smaller crabs back into the main tank (due to lack of activity from the larger ones) so there is a possibility that the smallest male is the father if one of the smaller girls was gravid when I moved them back.

SO while highly probably it is NOT absolutely certain that these are captive males offspring.

Renroc wrote: Well there is a very strong possibility.I have 3 males and one of them is not a captive bred one. It and 3 smaller females were in a seperate tank to the 2 captive bred males and 3 larger females. I am almost certain that the mother is the larger female I saw balancing on the edge of the salt pool on Sunday night. BUT seeing as they have all been missing in action for ages (well not being seen by me) I had no idea I even had any females with eggs.

2 weeks ago I moved the smaller crabs back into the main tank (due to lack of activity from the larger ones) so there is a possibility that the smallest male is the father if one of the smaller girls was gravid when I moved them back.

SO while highly probably it is NOT absolutely certain that these are captive males offspring.

Yeah, I think you mentioned that, I just got excited Still nice to see, nonetheless.


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Just did a check at the start of Day 6 (after working an 8 hr shift in an emergency operations centre for flood rescues) and they are all still doing well. No mega at this stage but later today it should start happening. I put shells in just in case about midday on day 5.

Are you going to be selling them?

Probably wont get enough to sell. But I will be keeping them anyway.

Today was day 7 and all are megalopa. I put shells and food in at 8am before I left for the day. I wasn't able to get back until after 9:30pm. I found out that during the day I had a power black out (a car took out the powerlines on the highway about a block from my place) so I had no heating and no water circulation for who knows how long. About 50% loss in the jar that had the most in it. The second jar that had fewer mega in it seems to have survived better. All the food was eaten by the time I got home. Did a 1/3 water change and added some new food. They are absolutely interested in food and were grabbing it in their claws. This is an excellent sign.

This is so cool! Please keep updating us! Can you post pictures?! Lol


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How's it going?!!

I’ve been super busy dealing with record flooding in my local
Area. So I haven’t been keeping up this thread. My apologies. But I have to share this news.
In the evening of day 18 I had one make a break for air. At 0030 on 2/4/21 I noticed it on the sand. Soooo close. Just one morph on land and it will be a baby hermit crab. I had all but given up as these last 2 survivors are way behind schedule. But it just goes to show nature runs to her own timeline.





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Congrats! Great news!