Decorator crab issues

[AwfulArabella]

An someone please tell me what my decorator crab is doing to me it looks like he's rooting through his belly from the outside and there's all little red balls inside its really freaky looking I tried to get good pictures please help

[Rosesrblu1]

Eggs???' just a guess

[AwfulArabella]

Thats what it looks like but she's the only decorator in the tank and I got her when I started out my tank which was about 6 months ago ? Is it possible she is having babies ?

[Rosesrblu1]

I have no idea, maybe she is cross breaking with another crab???

[Keithhjs]

Is it possible it stole something else's eggs?

[AwfulArabella]

She's the only crab in the tank other than the hermits and only 4 fish none of which are the same species of fish so who's eggs would she steal ? Can they reproduce by them selves ? Here's everything in my tank just incase

Fox face rabbit fish
Blenny
File fish
Sand sifting goby
Decorator crab
7 different types of hermits
1 sea biscuit
1 star fish
4 snails ( stawberry cone, turbo, Mexican turbo and another one I don't no the name of )
And a Pygmy octopus although they can't get to each other

Any ideas ?

[Rosesrblu1]

I'm stumped...unless they have an abnormally long breaking process??

[AwfulArabella]

Maybe I can't find anything about it online haha so I'm at a loss

[AwfulArabella]

I brought a video to sea horse aquariums and they confirmed she is pregnant and far along aswel (: so excited

[AwfulArabella]

Here's a good pic you can actually see her eggs pretty clear (:

[Mrc8858]

Following. I actually just posted a similar thread about a month ago with no results : / I found my emerald crab trying to "shake" her way into my circulation pump to find out she was dropping eggs and got chopped up I do have another crab in the tank though which is a ruby so I'm very curious to see if any eggs make it and if they are hybrids or something lol

[AwfulArabella]

Hopefully some made it out ok apparently crabs can hold back on fertilisation a long time after mating cause I've had my crab ( my only crab ) 6 months now so she's been waiting all that time and she's nearly there she's ready to go any day now it's amazing really

[Keithhjs]

That's cool, I hope you see some offspring. A couple of my emeralds were mating last week and so I googled it and read getting any offspring is highly unlikely. Hopefully decorater crabs are more successful.

[Ingy]

Crab eggs fertilize outside the female. Most species actually disperse the eggs and sperm at the same time and fertilization occurs at sea. Most fish are the same way. That means the eggs will develop whether a make is around or not. They just won't fertilize.

[AwfulArabella]

There definitely fertilised they have there little eye now and there's no way some one in the tank done it cause she's the only crab, plus its been six months sine i got her so she had to have done it when she was in the shop but theres no way her eggs take 6 months to grow,I'll try when the time comes to take the baby's out but the cave were she lives she's the only one who fits in there and it's got lots of holes and there's plenty of hiding space so I'm hoping that helps too and I've only got 4 fish 70 gallon tank so there's loads a of space so they can get away from each other (: just don't no what I'm gonna do with a load of baby decorator crabs I'll have no corals left they'll all be wearing them.

There's a pic of the caves I made in my tank she hangs out in the furthest right one that looks like have a circle, and there's smaller caves and hidy holes within the bigger looking rocks so hopefully they have a fighting chance