Red Claw Crabs

[silverain420]

Hello! I have a couple of red claw crabs I got last Thurs (10/16), a male and a female. They are living in a 5 gallon tank with a betta and live plants. The female just molted Sat night, and now it seems she lost two legs on one side of her body! Everything I've read said this can happen, and when they molt again, they will come back, but I feel so bad! Is there anything I can do to at least make her a little more comfortable? Also, I read that you should leave the molted matter in the aquarium, because they will eat it to get the proper nutrients to harden their new shell. Also, I was advised to seperate the crabs for about 24 hours. Well, I don't have another tank, but I was able to put the male crab in a plastic cup and float him in the tank. The female crab hardly moved for 24 hours, and did not attempt to eat the shell. So I let the other crab be free in the tank again, and she started moving around again. It looked as though she was eating the shell this morning when I left for work. Is this normal? Should I leave the crabs alone when they molt? She seemed to do much better with him roaming around...

[cdawson]

Red Claw crabs and fiddler crabs should only be kept in tanks with mostly land and a little bit of water. The water should also be brackish water as that is where they originate from. Usually anything that's labelled FW 'anything' generally isn't FW (with some exceptions), they're usually BW to full marine.
Crabs always eat the leftover shell after they molt because the calcium in it helps their new shell harden faster, the female didn't move much because their natural instinct when molting is to hide in their shoreside burrows until their shells harden then returning to the mud flats to feed.
Any type of crab shouldn't be kept in full FW or water without land, they'll eventually either try escaping the tank to reach higher ground or they'll die from being in the water for too long. Some people have kept them in tanks without land, but not for long periods of time (in excess of a few months).
Also, a 5g tank is too small for two red claws and a betta. The red claws will probably wind up killing each other as the males are pretty abusive to the females.

[silverain420]

Well thank you for the info. They do have a couple of hiding places where they can get out the water, but not out the tank. I always have kept them alone (years ago, in a brackish tank) but the gal at Petsmart advised me they do better as a pair (I used to work at Petsmart, don't know why I fell for it.) Unfortunately, I just called them and was advised they will not take one of the crabs back... I will try to monitor them and make sure they don't pick on each other. I haven't really seen them bother each other. I don't know what else to do now.