Horseshoe crab, or no?

[crister13]

I REALLY want a horseshoe crab and have a 150g tank with around 1" sandbed. If I get him, I will make it around 2-3". I have littleneck clams which I put in the tank and they have buried themselves. Will he open the clams and eat them? Even if hes well fed? I have 110# of LR with naso, honeycomb grouper, niger trigger, bird wrasse, snowflake eel, and yellow tang. Will these fish kill him? Its a FOWLR btw.
Thanks.

 

[Kevin8888]

He is unlikely to eat the clams, but once adult size he will starve, they require a HUGE amount of "dirty" (live stuff such as bacteria zooplancton etc) to feed off of, also they generally dont come out of the sand much so not really worth the investment IMO.

 

[crister13]

Couldn't I find him and feed him shrimp and silversides? I would VERY gently put my hand under him and let him eat. Would the other fish pick on him? How high of a temp can they have?

 

[krichardson]

I had a small one years ago but I don't remember if it scavenged on the bottom or not.It was taken out buy my octopus though.

 

[Kevin8888]

I did some more additional reading on them, have some good news and some bad news. Good news is, its possible to target feed them, with clams small on half shell or cut up (if your clams are small enough he may eat them), pieces of fish, or worms (the kind for fish not earth worms), part of the bad news is, they are still generally hard to feed, though you wouldnt have to "hand feed" it, you would just have to place it infront of it, or slightly insert it into the sand. The really bad news is, if they do survive, the get to about 2' long and 1' wide, in other words bloody huge... and your 2-3" of sand will not be even close to enough... you would need something around 1-2 feet of sand.

 

[jwalkerafc7]

I did some more additional reading on them, have some good news and some bad news. Good news is, its possible to target feed them, with clams small on half shell or cut up (if your clams are small enough he may eat them), pieces of fish, or worms (the kind for fish not earth worms), part of the bad news is, they are still generally hard to feed, though you wouldnt have to "hand feed" it, you would just have to place it infront of it, or slightly insert it into the sand. The really bad news is, if they do survive, the get to about 2' long and 1' wide, in other words bloody huge... and your 2-3" of sand will not be even close to enough... you would need something around 1-2 feet of sand.

ive seen one get that big in captivity at public aquariums and stuff but man thats huge! i saw them at petco and they were the size of a quarter. i had no clue they get that big in a regular tank!

 

[crister13]

Alright, Ill add sand as needed as he grows. Ive heard of many people only saying their disc got up to 8" in captivity so thats what ill hope for. Thanks for the help,
Chris

 

[wantokeeptrout]

Alright, Ill add sand as needed as he grows. Ive heard of many people only saying their disc got up to 8" in captivity so thats what ill hope for. Thanks for the help,
Chris

I would plan for the full wild size, not what others have had with captive specimens, you just never know...

 

[Tb86]

The general consensus is no, I had one for a while as a loner clean up guy, first you need to understand that you will not see him for weeks at a time... So I would forget the possibility of target feeding unless you want to dig up your substrait on a weekly basis looking for it, and you will need to be very careful with powerheads as I would often find it stuck in the intake as they like to swim sometimes like others have said unless your tank has been set up for a longtime and has a huge footprint with min 6-12 in deep substrate I'd look for another animal unless you want it to starve and die

 

[Tb86]

So no the trigger, and bird wrasse will kill him 100 percent, I'd be surprised if you could even drop it in the tank with out the trigger eating it, remember why the bird wrasse has a long narrow nose? it's for getting hard to reach creatures such as this...on another thread you say you want a mantis as well...for sure the mantis will dig it up and kill it, sorry