emerald crab reproduction!???

zeke92

Active Member
ok i just got an emerald crab home, on the way home i noticed these wierd things int he water and by the time we got home there must have been over a hundred. the crab stood up and opened it's chest and then closed it real fast and more of these things came out every time. it's chest looked filled with eggs/pod thingies. is my crab having babies? what are the odds of there survival? i put alot in a 2.5 hex with no filter so they can't get sucked up and i'm sure she will have more babies in the 18g wich has a powerhead and 2 filters to get sucked into...
i just want to know if this IS for sure babies and what the chances of there survival is. pretty sweet odds of coming home with a pregnant crab
 

clownfish11

Active Member
and man those odds are decent considering crabs reporduce pretty easily in my mind, but on the real lmk about them if they survive, how much $, etc,etc
 

howardj

Active Member
I have wanted to try to breed emeralds, but I have read that it doesn't happen often, and when it does, they fry usually doesn't make it..
Are they big enough to tell if they are crabs yet or not?
 

zeke92

Active Member
they look like squirming wierd white tadpoles with little black dots in the middle kinda. but i'm 99% sure there babies cause there coming out of its chest and it looked like ther had to be hundreds more still to hatch. i'm gonna catch some more hopefully and put them in my 10g and put the foam over the intake. hopefully with babies in 3 tanks atleast some may survive.
i'll keep this thread updated and get pics soon. hopefully we can learn some interesting things
 

zeke92

Active Member
the 2.5 hex and the 10 gallon both have sand....and the 18g has crushed coral. should i take the sand out of the 2.5 hex? that won't be too hard.
i went up there to get pics of her and stuff but she darted for cover as soon as she saw a camera. not the photo type i guess

but her chest, when it was opened, looked like there were still tons of 'fry' in there. sorta disgusting thinking of all those squirming things in her chest though
the 'fry' from what i see have stopped swimming, of course most of them weren't swimming anyway until i dropped them into the tanks. so are they already starting to go to the ground and transform or did i fail before i began?
 

clownfish11

Active Member
get the sand out asap, catch the moma emerald and put it in the tank with no sand and see what happens, but if you see teh babies in the tank with sand then just try and get the sand out without killing hte little guys..
ill be on 2morrow
peace
UPDATES
 

zeke92

Active Member
the 2.5 doesn't even have rock..should i add rock for the emerald? it's really late i didn't want to have to go back up there -.-
i'm afraid the momma emerald would die in that small tank, it has no filter, and probably not the best tank to be in.
 

clownfish11

Active Member
well then i say yuo use luck and see if somehow the babies will grow in your tank and hey if they well congrats, but if they dont well...
 

sk8shorty01

Active Member
I would say to leave the sand in the tank. Considering the fry are probably the size of a grain of salt it would be rather difficult to distinguish them from the sand to begin with. Tank about finding 1000 needles in a haystack!
 

zeke92

Active Member
thats what i was thinking. and also i was also thinking about the seahorse thread and how i'm going to be going different directions and thinking of new things, besides what the average 'guide' says, so i'm gonna leave the momma in her normal tank and see how the rest of the babies pan out.
pretend the filter intakes are fish mouths. the tank is really nothing different then them being born in the wild.
 

sk8shorty01

Active Member
I think rather than thinking fish mouths, you should think more like whale mouths because the intakes are sucking in anything that gets even remotely close... Good luck and keep us posted.
 

zeke92

Active Member
there three small holes, there not very powerful, especially since 50% if not more of the intake is always covered with algae ><
plus the 10 gallon has foam over it's intake and atleast a hundred babies or more are in the hex with no filter at all. but i really can't see anything at all in any of the tanks so i can't see if there alive or if there progressing.
how long will it take for them to become little crabs?
 

zeke92

Active Member
not really, but it's really hard to tell, my 18 gal is filled with algae problem atm and my 10g's filter makes tons of bubbles when it drops in, and i havent seen any swimming in the 2.5.
should tey be swimming?
 

clownfish11

Active Member
okay got some pics and tell me if this looks like waht you saw

look at the eggs in the belly area.

is this wat the little eggs looked like?
 

zeke92

Active Member
i didn't see her underbelly and i havent seen her today when i was up at the garage. but thats pretty much what the babies looked like, little white specks with small tails that squirmed around but most didn't move in the bag and now i don't see any swimming. so maby there morphing or taking to the ground?
 
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