HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I saw your post on CSJ. Hope they make it!

That is amazing! I'm am utterly astonished, and thank you for posting this! Please keep us posted.

I've learned so much in the past few months that I read your subject line and thought "Yeah...right!"...then I saw the pictures.

It's astounding what nature will come up with when you tell it it "can't do that".

Thats what Ive always thought, too. I mean, I picked up Mossy because she was being bullied by my E (the one in my avatar) and I looked down and had eggs all over my hands. It blew me away!

Around Christmas time, my goldfish spawned, and that shocked me too. In all my years of goldfish keeping, Ive never had any breed, and then out of nowhere they do, and in the middle of winter to top it off! LOL

I've always known someday someone will be sucessful, that's just the way of the indominatable human will, I never say never. It would be really cool if it were you! Thanks for the pics. Love to hear more on their progress!

Utterly amazing! Keep us posted, and good luck !

WOW! well you're clearly doing something very correctly for that kind of behaviour to be occuring! do you plan to move the larvae into an all water aquarium? if you do you could try using one of those air powered charcoal/fuzzy stuff filters that sits on the bottom, they dont' make a lot of suction, it's what I used when my guppies bred. You can also cover the top with a piece of old pantyhose to make the holes as small as possible. wouldn't it be great if even 1 made it to the little crab stage??? This could be the beginning of captive bred crabs! Congrats!!

When I read the subject I thought "yeah right" just as cranlsn did, but then I saw how long you had been a member and the post and.... wow! Keep us posted, very interesting stuff!

i think that is totally awesome!

crabber wrote:Hey jsrtist,

I'm sure you can tell me if I'm wrong, but there are other cases of eggs hatching, the problems have been raising them past a certain stage (can't remember right now what stage that was). Filters would often sweep them up, aside from the very specific conditions and food requirements they have. It's way exciting, that's for sure!

I've read that as well. IIRC, they usually die out while in the larval stage.

WOW that's cool that you even got eggs!

I read, long ago, they live a very long time in the ocean before emerging. Those that survive the trek to the floor spend a great deal of time eating microscopic bits of food.

My guess is the temp is much colder than we can keep it in standing water, but don't know. Have you contacted any local aquariums or labs that are studying breeding crabs in captivity? Do they need motion in the water? Do they need the darkness? Do PH levels etc matter? Man, i have so many questions! I'm so excited for you!!

OH WOW! What an exciting thing to have happen! I wouldnt even know what to do or where to begin if one of my crabs laid eggs! Good luck to you!

Wow, jsrtist! This is very amazing! It really teaches you to never say never, and your tank conditions must be amazing if your crabs would feel safe enough to do such a thing. It is great that you are keeping up on all the notes and everything. I'm looking forward to see how everything goes, and I wish you luck with everything!

Keep us posted!

Even if only one is able to survive you did something amazing. Don't give up on them! I think that calling someone that could specialize in something like this might help but the only thing is this is really strange. I would'nt really know their needs but I assume They need to be in something that very closely resembles their natural habitat so I'm not sure how you can replicate it.

Amazing. When I first saw the subject I also said no way... I thought this is just a way to get more attention to a post... then I was amazed.

Keep us posted. Give us lots of details.