crabs

[spkdtch]

how quickly do crabs normally grow? i was at a LFS today and saw massive emerald crabs, biggest ive ever seen. I just ordered 3 from swf.com and they are tiny like i expected, but how quickly do they grow? aside from molting from stress, how often do crabs and shrimp molt?
i haven't found many articles on life expectancy of fish or inverts in general, so trying to find out how long an emerald will take before its full grown was damn near impossible
ive found tons of great information on here from everyone on this site so please help me clear that up
also, i bought a new anemone crab recently(not a hermit) and its a dark brownish red along with the normal white im used to, not a caribbean one, just looks darker on its back from the normal white one, most of them looked like that. Is that a sign that its going to molt soon? or many just an older one?
and lastly, my anemone hermit crab just molted, then buried the molt under the sand, is that normal? i thought most moltings are meant to be displayed as a distraction while the new exoskeleton hardens

 

[joe____17]

I keep crabs and they usually molt when water quality is an issue only when they molt multiple times. My decorator molts whenever he grows so i would say no more than once every month or so.

 

[spkdtch]

what about the hermit crab buring its molt? the anemone crabs dark color? how long til an emerald crab is full size

 

[joe____17]

I've never heard of a hermit crab burying its molt. All my hermits just leave thier molts where they are. How big is this emerald crab? Inch- wise.

 

[spkdtch]

i have 4 of them, the biggest is about an inch, smallest is about half an inch

 

[joe____17]

How big would you say the one you saw at the lfs was? I havent heard of any getting any bigger than about 2 inches.

 

[spkdtch]

id say close to 3 inches, just huge, the other one was 2 inches and was fairly big, when the girl went to grab them, they hid, it was in a coral DT, so when they hid, it was game over
i got some strange type of emerald instead, it looks all brown and tan, kinda camo looking, red eyes, but other than that, same hairy legs and size as an emerald, havent bothered to look it up exactally and my camera makes it look to blurry, so i cant ask for an ID

 

[joe____17]

I saw an emerald just like that, guess they can have different color phases. Are you eventually gonna get that big emerald? When they're big they can get quite destructive.

 

[spkdtch]

the girl there couldnt get it, it kept hiding, and ran way into the LR so probably not, but i did want it, even if it would be mean, id put it in the refuge

 

[spkdtch]

turns out the dark color in the anemone crab means it is getting ready to molt, it molted last night and its back to a white color

 

[d-man]

I had a emerald crab but he got crushed by a shifting rock but he grew almost twice his size in about 6mths but he had lots of food and he would start out a bright green and get darker tell he shed my friend has had one for I don't know how long and he is huge like the one you saw but I don't know if he would evan remember how long he's had it