Blue crab hatchery??? Maybe

kcschwabe · Feb 12, 2022

So this is kind of an update to some othe posts regarding blue crabs that my wife and I caught as tiny little babies no bigger than a small pinky nail….

anyways one of our blue crabs has finally gotten pregnant lol hoping at least one survives was wondering if this would be possible in an aquarium ??

any feedback please

SlugSnorter · Feb 14, 2022

Crabs are hard. Very small.

my recommendation:

Bucket with a preset heater and hang on sponge filter and airstone.

Feed baby brine and live phyto.

or let the babies become a healthy and good snack for your tank

moz71 · Feb 14, 2022

very cool! I personally would not put with other habitants in a reef tank. I would keep crab only tank. THe reason is these are ferocious opportunistic eaters. They will eat anything live or died; fish (if can catch)or coral. So will be sad for any tankmates you put in. I live on water here in NJ and have kept what I call a local Bay tank. Meaning I will keep baby crabs and various fish species caught in seine nets. However the problem is they all grow super fast so I return them to water at end of each summer to live on.

kcschwabe · Feb 27, 2022

Yeah, we caught our first blue crab at the coast. We also have a biotope with pistol shrimp, stone crabs, we call them ghost shrimp and hermits.

Our biggest blue crab never mated but got about 8 inches from tip to tip. We had her for a year. This one is very small and only molted about 2 times since we got her but we had a male with her a little bigger. We keep them w/ our hermits and pin fish because yes...when they start off small will eat everything they can. We lost a lot of snails and conches to our first blue crab.

She moved from her normal tank to our display because there was less there to mess with her but maybe her substrate was too shallow...she picked off most her eggs. Hopefully putting her back in her normal tank will have her produce more eggs...but yes, they became good snacks for our tank!

Chrisv. · Feb 27, 2022

kcschwabe said:
Yeah, we caught our first blue crab at the coast. We also have a biotope with pistol shrimp, stone crabs, we call them ghost shrimp and hermits.

Our biggest blue crab never mated but got about 8 inches from tip to tip. We had her for a year. This one is very small and only molted about 2 times since we got her but we had a male with her a little bigger. We keep them w/ our hermits and pin fish because yes...when they start off small will eat everything they can. We lost a lot of snails and conches to our first blue crab.

She moved from her normal tank to our display because there was less there to mess with her but maybe her substrate was too shallow...she picked off most her eggs. Hopefully putting her back in her normal tank will have her produce more eggs...but yes, they became good snacks for our tank!

Very cool!

WVNed · Feb 27, 2022

My friend that came on my live rock 2 years ago. It was about 2 inches when I removed it from the DT. It comes up so I can feed it. I am giving it a squid ring.

Paul B · Feb 27, 2022

They are actually to easy to raise in a tank. I use NSW and find them in my tank. They eat fish so I remove them but I have raised them a few times and in about 2 years they get huge.

I put them back in the sea after a while. I also catch them all the time for dinner.

They are all over the place here and it is hard to get away from them.

moz71 · Feb 27, 2022

Paul B said:
They are actually to easy to raise in a tank. I use NSW and find them in my tank. They eat fish so I remove them but I have raised them a few times and in about 2 years they get huge.

I put them back in the sea after a while. I also catch them all the time for dinner.

They are all over the place here and it is hard to get away from them.

Very nice! And very tasty! Crab feast all summer. Never thought about raising to eat! I guess easier to catch and eat. Lol

Chrisv. · Feb 27, 2022

WVNed said:
My friend that came on my live rock 2 years ago. It was about 2 inches when I removed it from the DT. It comes up so I can feed it. I am giving it a squid ring.

A few more years and you can have an appetizer!

kcschwabe · Mar 3, 2022

WVNed said:
My friend that came on my live rock 2 years ago. It was about 2 inches when I removed it from the DT. It comes up so I can feed it. I am giving it a squid ring.

we have a few stone crabs as well we like to reach in and grab the nastiest looking rocks we can find you never know what might be living in on or around things in the ocean.
i picked up an open oyster shell partially buried in the sand and found a baby goby and two mated pistol shrimp they breed and lay eggs at least twice a month

kcschwabe · Mar 3, 2022

the stuff that appears out of nowhere is pretty cool too
if you look closely at the white stuff on that piece of shell you'll notice pairs of little valves that is a sea squirt colony that is starting to randomly form

kcschwabe · Mar 3, 2022

it'll die out get eaten then come back

kcschwabe · Mar 6, 2022

so an update ...

we moved her to a different tank thinking the pin fish in her tank would eat all the eggs/babies ..
I don't think she liked that very much as she started to kind of pick at her eggs with her little legs.
That being said we are not too sure if she picked them all off or not . we put her back into her tank maybe she will have another batch.

WVNed · Mar 6, 2022

I dont know about blue crabs. I looked up about stone crabs because mine was carrying a mass as well.

It did this twice. These crabs have sex and the babies are "born" when the mother molts. She then carries them for a while and then releases them into the water. I think raising the tiny crabs would require something like raising pods. They are plankton for a while.

kcschwabe · Mar 6, 2022

WVNed said:
I dont know about blue crabs. I looked up about stone crabs because mine was carrying a mass as well.

It did this twice. These crabs have sex and the babies are "born" when the mother molts. She then carries them for a while and then releases them into the water. I think raising the tiny crabs would require something like raising pods. They are plankton for a while.

kcschwabe · Mar 6, 2022

First I was having a prob with the phone … hence the empty reply

I completely agree about raising them.. I would love to one day have some sort of set up to do this and also my pistol shrimp that mate constantly..

kcschwabe · Mar 11, 2022

Also I forgot to mention that at least half of the stone crabs I have caught I have had to get rid of because they somehow acquire some sort of parasitic barnacle that can control their movements and some other stuff . anyways I know it’s not their butt , however, I call them butt barnacles because you see them coming out of their little apron flap looking like a bad case of hemorrhoids