Scared...

[Cri]

2 days ago I found one of my crabs dead on the kitchen floor right next to the door out. It's cold as hell right at that spot.... I think she froze to death. But...

The crab still alive in the tank is making me scared like hell.
I gave her food yesterday, wich she ate a lot of. So I asumed everything is alright. But today I found her on the land part. She's hardly moving at all, and she's been there all day now. So far I've seen two limbs that she's either picked of or just "droped".... wth is happening ?

Will I find a dead crab tomorow ? Or is this some wierd kind of way for her to molt. My last crab just left the whole shell intact, so that's how I asumed these ones would do too. But aparently they ate their first molted shell so I never got to see if it had limbs or not.

oh and needless to say... I've made really sure that the tank is escape safe now. Besides that I didn't change anything in the tank except remove a hideout they never used.


anyway.... I'm scared. :S

[annageckos]

What kind of crabs are these? What kind of set up do you have and what are the temps? I can't make any guesses as to what is going on untill I know the answers to these questions.

[Cri]

It's a small tank, about 50 lit if it was full. just a third filled now, part land part water, 5 mm gravel. A fluval 1+ to keep the water fresh. The caves are made of old flower potts. Sound bad but that's it. I'm not sure how warm it is, I'd guess about 26. Feels as warm as my fish tank and in that one I'm keeping a track on the heater.

edit.
I've had it going with the crabs for a few months now. And it looked like they liked it. Eating good , moving gravel around and so on.

lol. edit again...
there's a pic of the crabs in the post about gravel just a few posts under this on in the crabs section.

[annageckos]

What kind of crabs are they? Most of the common species are brackish. If the tank set up for freshwater or brackish.

[Cri]

brackish. The petstore said "black crabs".... but googling that didn't give me anything usefull.

[annageckos]

I haven't heard of that name, maybe red claw crab. Look at this link and let me know if that is what you have http://aqualandpetsplus.com/Bug,%20C15.jpg If it is it sounds like you are doing everything right. If you can find out what the temp is. Sometimes when they get ready to moult they become less active. Do you feed a good varied diet. Inverts need iodine to moult properly. As long as you feed a good diet that shouldn't be a consern.

[Cri]

I give them frozen krill from the petstore as main food, besides that they get all sorts of greens I have at home. They really love the green peas. :) I think they got cooked fish one time. they seem to eat anything I give them.

No the link doesn't match my crab. But then again, she's so small it's hard to get a good look at her. Even my thumbnail is bigger than her shell. She's more brown in collor all over, and even darker on the back.