Rogue strikes again....

I'veGotCrabs · Post by **I'veGotCrabs** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 6:08 pm

Rogue was my first shell thief 3 years ago. He found himself a nice large shell that fit him and quit bothering my other crabs...until now! He's the largest crab in my tank and has always had some dominance issues, shoving other smaller guys around and stuff, but he's starting to go after them like 3 years ago. The differene now is that I know better-there have got to be 30 shells in my tanks, and at least 7-10 are his size! Why would he be aggressive towards my crabs again? Any ideas-I don't want to iso what has been a relatively gentle giant for 3 years now but if he keeps getting worse and worse I don't know what else to do with him.

Post by **wodesorel** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 6:18 pm

From my personal experience with my crabs:

1. Diet - something is missing or he's craving shellfish and it's not the shell he's after but the actual crab. (Mine get krill and plankton very often to satisfy this.)

2. Molting - either the crabs he's after are about to molt, or he is. The about to molt crabs smell yummy, and if he's about to molt he could just be cranky.

3. He's bigger and he's gotten bored. I found some old articles by Carol of Crabworks, and the older her crabs got the more she had to let them out so they wouldn't completely destroy the tank over night. She claims that without letting them have at least a couple of hours of house roaming time every evening they would spend all night rearranging the tank, but with the exercise everything stayed tidy. I imagine that in a tank with other crabs, going after them would be more interesting then tearing up the decorations.

Just some ideas to maybe help you figure out what's going on. That would be scary to know that you have a crab who's picking on others!

I'veGotCrabs · Post by **I'veGotCrabs** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 6:32 pm

Thanks, I'm pretty good about feeding fresh, organic shrimp and other shell-fishy things, but I'll be sure to double dose it tonight. I never thought about the boredom thing. I'll have to let him out for a while and see what he gets into.

I also have 3 who are about to molt too, so hopefully feeding him appropriate shell fish will keep him from eating his little brothers and sisters! eek! Thanks for the suggestions-I'll experiment with them and see what works! And in true unpredictable crab nature he's being a complete angel right now, looking at me cutely from the other side of the tank like "who...me?"