Boxer Crabs

[JasandJules]

Right, looks like one of the four boxers we have in the Seahorse tank is carrying eggs. It has red stuff under it looks just like in a photo I found by Linda Pitkin.

Soo, anyone know how to raise boxer crabs?

Jas n Jules

[JasandJules]

No-one at all? She is still carrying the eggs as of last night...

[wayne g]

hi jas.
i kept fidler crabs many moons ago in a mangrove/swamp tank.
when mine started to show a clutch of eggs i spoke to my lfs...he advised me to call london zoo who passed me onto the natural history museum.
at that time this had not happened in captivity before and i ended up with some correspondence faxed from the marine biology unit at baltimore in the usa.
the long and short of it was that the eggs were released and the filters mopped up...the national history guys asked me to contact them again the moment a new clutch arrived and they would try to icubate/grow them on with their hi teck equipment/filtration.
sadly they never did it again....(twice previously before this they 'spawned' before and i did nothing)
my names in a refence book somewhere....must look into that some day!
i would start with london zoo or the museum for any advise.
hth

[JasandJules]

Oooh, interesting.....

I guess I can try that.. I have seen a photo online of one carrying eggs (little red things underneath) which looks the same as ours does...But I don't know if that was in captivity or in the sea........

Cheers for that mate.

Jas

[wayne g]

it was about 1987/88 when i spoke to all concerned so god knows what has happened since..probably commonplace now?

[jamieb]

do you have any pics?
sounds very interesting, i cant even find much about the crabs let alone breeding them

[JasandJules]

I have a pic (rather poor) but sadly no idea how to upload them......She is still carrying the eggs this evening too...

[mark97r6]

Hi, you getting anywhere with these? I have a pair in one of my tanks and the smaller one carries a huge mass of bright red eggs every now and then. I am trying to work out the frequency. They are in a small tank with very few small fish, mostly shrimps and things so are regulary on show. And the eggs dont appear as much as you would expect with shrimps.

I have been working on breeding shrimps at the moment after having quite a good success rate i have thought about attempting these, but cant find much info on breeding any crabs.
Some easier fish are my next project but i still may have a go at these small crabs. The thing i thought about was if you managed to raise them, they would have no way of 'picking up' there anemones! So would be rather defenceless and be predated on (And lack there character!!).

Might be worth a try though, i was thinking following the shrimp breeding guidelines with close observation. Although they may need rots as a first food where as most shrimp are good with baby brine shrimp.

If you do fancy having a go the latin name is Lybia tessallata, this should enable you to get a little more info. And as for raising them, if you have never tried this before and cant come up with anything for the crabs then try following some more basic rearing guidelines and work from there. The most simple is peppermint shrimps and there is an abundance of info out there on raising these, which you can modify inline with your observations. Although if you can find anything on rearing true crabs this would be even better.
Let us know what you do!
HTH
Mark

[clippo]

not sure if you've seen this Jas...

http://www.mic-d.com/gallery/oblique/megalopsofcrab.html

some useful general information perhaps.

I'd think you'd need to collect freshly hatched zoea and put them in a set-up similar to a baby seahorse rearing tank (ferris wheel type) feeding phyto etc. Guess when they progress to megalops stage, they need to go into a breeding trap set-up..... pure guess work really.

Not sure about the anemones....

[JasandJules]

Cheers for that link, will look at that later..

The nems, well we bought one a few weeks ago with no nems at all (felt sorry for him) and the other week we saw him with a tiny aptasia in his claw, which we assume means he has taken it as a weapon.. How clever is that?!!? Soo, plenty of tiny aips in the seahorse tank where the boxers are.....

[clippo]

excellent - I was hoping to get these to spawn myself but haven't seen either of mine for ages now. I know they are reclusive, but I think they may have had it....

[JasandJules]

Really poor photo, but

http://www.freephotohosting.us/images/jasandjules/boxerbabies.jpg

[clippo]

excellent - look forward to updates!

Just seen one of mine btw! - had been awol for about 5 weeks!