my crabs died

[froggyfiend]

I got 4 fiddler crabs from my lfs about 2 weeks ago, and now they are all dead

They kept trying to escape from the tank, I would find them on top of the heater, filter, etc, so I kept knocking them down into the water. Come to find out, I go to a different lfs, and I started talking about them, and they guy says I made them drown He told me that
they only spend 15% of their time in the water. Now, why the hell would I go to a lfs that has all these crabs in a purley aquatic tank, if they have to have land to climb up on? Wonder how many of these little critters they scoop up and "flush" on a daily basis? I just can believe this! Not that they were expensive, but damn! I hate losing any kind of critter.

 

[fisher12889]

Some people at petstores will do anything to sell things. Thats why people here bash on petco and petsmart sometimes lol

 

[guppy]

There are a lot of different fiddlers but I think they all spend at least some time out of the water, I had a few little brown ones that the fiddle claw was only a little enarged (SP.?) in a FW 55g that was heavily planted so that there were surface mats of elodea. The crabs spent most of their time on top of the plants. I would also find them inside the HOB filter and at night they would sometimes climb the curtains behind the tank but if you moved in the room they would run back to the tank. Suprisingly I never lost any outside the tank.

 

[froggyfiend]

I hear ya on the petco thing. I bought them at jacks aquarium.....funny......always thought that they were one of the better stores

 

[Jason]

most all are indeed primarily terrestrial and most are shoreline species that seem to do better in the long run with brackish water available. I know not all are marine but the majority of the ones i see in michigan seem to be of the BW/marine group.

I kept mine in a shoreline vivarium with hermit crabs. The fiddlers would burrow and the hermits would lumber along and cave in the burrows and the fiddlers would dig out and do it all over again.

jason

 

[fisher12889]

If you want to keep some in your tank, do like guppy said and put some floating plants in the tank that they can crawl onto.

 

[wild caught]

i had 2 of theese before, then i got halloween jungles. way better crabs.