New crab owner!

[KhrystaSSP]

My friend and I bought crabs together last year, but she had to keep them since I was still living with my parents and they are anti-pet. I recently found this website and realized that she was not taking as good of care of them as she should be, so I asked her to depart with our crab babies and they are now living with me!

I have three purple pinchers, Stephan, who is larger than a quarter, Stella, who is about the size of a nickel, and my unnamed girl (who I'm probably going to name Polly), and she is almost the size of a dime.

I have their substrate at 6 inches deep, where as my friend had is at maybe an inch, and I have added more toys and salt water (which my friend was "too lazy" to fill everyday). Right now, I have the reptile bowls we were using, but I will probably be switching to the plastic bowls that I have here and filling it with rocks. They are currently all in a 10gal tank, due to size restrictions, but that will be changing as soon as I get more space, and the humidity and heat are at 80/80.

I very recently got my small girl, and the other two have been climbing on her shell and it seems like it's stressing her out. Is there anyway that I can stop this behavior if it seems like it's too rough of play? And when is it considered too rough?

[Hermias_mom]

Welcome to HCA! I'm a relatively new crabber myself, but I can tell you a few things folks who've done this for a while often recommend. First, dip her in the fresh water so she smells like she is part of the colony. Just down and up, don't hold her under. Then reintroduce her to the others. This should reduce aggression, and may be all you need to do.

Another thing- make sure you have enough shells (at least 5) of the correct type and size available-sometimes aggression is because they want each other's shells. But you said she is the smallest, so probably not the case at the moment...

Most likely they are just establishing the colony pecking order, and it is probably nothing to worry about. Might chech out the Crab Behavior forum on this site - there are a few informative posts about common crab behavior. Climbing on her shell sounds like normal crab behavior to me. As long as no actual damage is being done, it's probably fine, but I'll let a more experienced crabber weigh in on that.

In the outside case that they really are being super aggressive,in other words,if it looks like your newbie is starting to suffer actual damage, you may want to post in the Emergency forum. Someone there can tell you the best thing to do. Of course first off you separate them so no one gets hurt then folks on the forum can help you figure out what might be the underlying cause of the trouble and how best to help your crabs.

Sounds like you are doing an awesome job and trying to take good care of your crabs! Good for you! Your crabs thank you . And don't hesitate to post if you have more questions-we are here to help!