Crabs in my tank?

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blkstar

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jan 30, 2003
Messages
5
Location
Miami, Florida
Hello, I have a new tank and I wanted to put some Red crabs or Red-claw shrilanka crabs in it. Will the crabs eat the fish? What kind of fish can I get or should I just rule the crabs out? Fresh water tropical 28gal, real plants. Thank you for your input
 
They will nip at fish, and kill smaller fish they can catch. They are also master escape artists, so make sure you have no openings in your lid. I found the crab I had in the basement computer room one morning about 4:30am and it scared the smelly stuff out of me. He climbed out of the tank, down the stairs, across the living room, down the hall and into the computer room.
 
Bearfan said:
They will nip at fish, and kill smaller fish they can catch. They are also master escape artists, so make sure you have no openings in your lid. I found the crab I had in the basement computer room one morning about 4:30am and it scared the smelly stuff out of me. He climbed out of the tank, down the stairs, across the living room, down the hall and into the computer room.

That is some story, made my day !! LOL
Did you re-tank it on finding it ?

I've thought about crabs, but decided against it. I think they're more hassel than good to be honest. They always get the blame for things as well, IE small, lost fish .
 
Be glad to help if i could, but I've stayed away from crabs and crayfish since the great escape episode.

I was 21 or so, brought home fishing bait crayfish from a trip, 8 or so. They all escaped from the tank overnight, and my mom nearly killed me. Found some alive, had to find the others by smell after they were dead, days later, under furniture and stuff. Super Yuk! :(

Therefore, no FW crustaceans for me anymore, and I haven't studied them. Sorry.
 
The crabs were eventually found and retanked, but they eventually died. I think the overnight exposure was too much.
 
I don't have any experince with FW crabs myself but my nephew had a blue crayfish in his 10 gal. tank and it would uproot and eat his plants and eat any fish it would catch.

The escape stories were great never knew crabs would get out of the tanks.
 
"One time I got crabs from my friends couch, do I locked myself in a bathroom and used a bug bomb and I almost died."
Chris Farley, Saturday Night Live

Anyway, the only fw crabs I have owned is a fiddler and I still have him. He dont bother the fish and dont try to get out of the tank. I would recommend fiddlers, neat to watch.
 
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