Vampire Crabs, please share your knowledge and experience!

[Lennie]

Well, I love crabs.

 

Seeing @Ninjoma's journal, made me even more willing to keep some. I made some readings and watching regarding the care and tank setup.

 

I will be setting a paludarium for a group and try it as a breeding project. %80 land, %20 seems like the best option advised in general. 

 

My questions are:

- Does the humidity, temperature, etc has any effect on the gender of the babies?

- Should I aim a certain temperature, or room temperature is fine?

- Can they crawl on flat surfaces like glass?

- What is the ideal substrate for the land parts in your experience?

- Which tank should I keep them in?

• 110cmx40cmx25cmh, or,
• 50cmx40cmx25cmh?

- They are usually okay to be kept in a group ,but some males can be deadly aggressive against females it seems. Any experience on this one?

 

-Is there any temperament difference or any difficulting difference in breeding different vampire crab species? Like disco vs yellow witcher vs Ironfish etc.

 

Please share any experience or knowledge of yours!^^

 

@Biotope Biologist do you have any experience or knowledge about crabs? If so, I would love to hear from you as well

 

This channel is a vampire crab gem. I'm in love with the videos 😍

https://www.youtube.com/@IndoorEcosystem

 

Challenge for everyone that visits this topic.

Don't break the eye contact!

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Lennie

[Biotope Biologist]

Good luck! I might get vampire crabs for my isopod’s new terrarium. So I’m right there with you on excitement for them! I know very little. 
 

Eatyourpeas has a journal on them id definitely check that out. I didn’t @ her because I think life is busy right now for all of us. 
 

My plan was just to setup a large waterfall and have a pool at the bottom for them. Cover it in duckweed and frogbit so the isos don’t drown but the crabs have a dark place to hide. I believe they are quite timid. Biggest thing is humidity. If I can maintain 70% or more and I just have a dinky halogen light for heat. But it still gets the current terrarium to 78-81 which I think is ideal for most of our arthropod friends. 

[Lennie]

On 6/12/2023 at 7:20 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

My plan was just to setup a large waterfall and have a pool at the bottom for them.

Keeping the water part cycled seems a lil tricky.

 

On 6/12/2023 at 7:20 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

I might get vampire crabs for my isopod’s new terrarium.

Isopods are really cool. When I was a kid, I spent my summers feeding them nonstop at my grandma's garden. There were so many! 😄

Edited June 12, 2023 by Lennie

[Biotope Biologist]

I… impulse bought them. It was around halloween two years ago and they are powder orange. They lived in a jar, outgrew that, got them a 10 gallon terrarium, now the population is burgeoning. I am thinking of starting to sell cultures locally for $5 for 12 or something. Their antics are adorable. I think they have some cow spot gene in them because I get some piebald ones orange/white.

This next terrarium is their forever home. The waterfall will have lots of emergent plants and aquatic insects to take care of the water feature. So cycling won’t be an issue. I also have slugs, earthworms, lots and lots of springtails, mites. It’s all just a large ecosystem. I think that is the best way to set up a high bioload terrarium. I’ve seen people grow some very exotic orchids without fuss in these style tanks. 
 

Not to detract from vampire crabs. My LFS has the ’mango’ variety and I’m obsessed.

[Lennie]

On 6/12/2023 at 7:45 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

I… impulse bought them. It was around halloween two years ago and they are powder orange. They lived in a jar, outgrew that, got them a 10 gallon terrarium, now the population is burgeoning. I am thinking of starting to sell cultures locally for $5 for 12 or something. Their antics are adorable. I think they have some cow spot gene in them because I get some piebald ones orange/white.

This next terrarium is their forever home. The waterfall will have lots of emergent plants and aquatic insects to take care of the water feature. So cycling won’t be an issue. I also have slugs, earthworms, lots and lots of springtails, mites. It’s all just a large ecosystem. I think that is the best way to set up a high bioload terrarium. I’ve seen people grow some very exotic orchids without fuss in these style tanks. 
 

Not to detract from vampire crabs. My LFS has the ’mango’ variety and I’m obsessed.

they are very pretty and ancient looking. 

 

I fell in love with the yellow witchers. 

 

The others they have are Disco, Ironfist, and Dennerle

[Lennie]

@Biotope Biologist Are isopods safe to collect from garden? Or they may carry some nasties? 🤔

Also this seems like something you may like 

 

 

Edit: I found some people selling them online! Yay. 

They have the normal grey ones, orange ones that you have and cow ones.

Cow ones are also adorable

 

So I better get some as cleanup crew?

Edited June 12, 2023 by Lennie

[aem1]

That colorful crab is Lepidothelphusa species "Tricolor" it should not be kept the same as vampire crabs. They must have 70%water and 30% land 

They are also more fragile than vampires

If you plan to use isopods make sure to have a spare colony, isopods will be eaten by vampires and lepidothelphusa sp almost always to extinction

[Lennie]

On 8/30/2023 at 5:42 AM, aem1 said:

That colorful crab is Lepidothelphusa species "Tricolor" it should not be kept the same as vampire crabs. They must have 70%water and 30% land 

They are also more fragile than vampires

If you plan to use isopods make sure to have a spare colony, isopods will be eaten by vampires and lepidothelphusa sp almost always to extinction

I got me Yellow witcher ones and set up 110x40x25cm paludarium for 5, with springtails and isopods. I have another isopod/springtail colony going on in another tank too.

I also have a cover on top but not on pics to keep the humidity and potential escapes:

(first day of the tank so the water part was blurry due to the sand. There is a cycled filter behind the rock)

[Cinnebuns]

On 6/12/2023 at 10:57 AM, Lennie said:

Well, I love crabs.

 

Seeing @Ninjoma's journal, made me even more willing to keep some. I made some readings and watching regarding the care and tank setup.

 

I will be setting a paludarium for a group and try it as a breeding project. %80 land, %20 seems like the best option advised in general. 

 

My questions are:

- Does the humidity, temperature, etc has any effect on the gender of the babies?

- Should I aim a certain temperature, or room temperature is fine?

- Can they crawl on flat surfaces like glass?

- What is the ideal substrate for the land parts in your experience?

- Which tank should I keep them in?

• 110cmx40cmx25cmh, or,
• 50cmx40cmx25cmh?

- They are usually okay to be kept in a group ,but some males can be deadly aggressive against females it seems. Any experience on this one?

 

-Is there any temperament difference or any difficulting difference in breeding different vampire crab species? Like disco vs yellow witcher vs Ironfish etc.

 

Please share any experience or knowledge of yours!^^

 

@Biotope Biologist do you have any experience or knowledge about crabs? If so, I would love to hear from you as well

 

This channel is a vampire crab gem. I'm in love with the videos 😍

https://www.youtube.com/@IndoorEcosystem

 

Challenge for everyone that visits this topic.

Don't break the eye contact!

 

Did you say you didn't like my purple vampire crab?  Changed your mind!

What I know is they require 50/50 land and water. Or so I'm told. I failed mine and killed it. I did have a turtle dock for mine but I'm told that's not enough. That's not why it died though. 

[Lennie]

On 8/30/2023 at 2:16 PM, Cinnebuns said:

Did you say you didn't like my purple vampire crab?  Changed your mind!

What I know is they require 50/50 land and water. Or so I'm told. I failed mine and killed it. I did have a turtle dock for mine but I'm told that's not enough. That's not why it died though. 

I still find the purple ones a bit creepy:P  If I gotta be honest, yellow witchers made me consider getting them, and I ended up going for it. These seem to me much smaller than other well known vampire crab colors

%80 land %20 water. I just expanded water section because there is enough land area as it is. Tho they usually spend their time on the rocks or land area. When I see them in water, I usually find their molts. So they usually prefer going to water area mainly for molting purposes I believe. Other than tank, they like hiding below woods pieces, climb on plants and play around lava rocks

 

Its been 2.5 months already! Time goes fast

[JChristophersAdventures]

All very interesting! I haven't kept vampire crabs, but in the 90s, I successfully kept a pair of cherry red fiddler crabs (at least that's what they were sold to me as). They were as red as a cherry shrimp all over and their shells were quite rounded as opposed to the somewhat more angular shape of the vampire crab. The male had one big claw and the female's claws were both little.

I had them in a 55G for roughly 1.5-2 years, and through a number of molts. I had plenty of plants and wood where they could climb out of the water, but no land. No little crabs ever (probably because there was no land). They spent most of their time at the water's edge, either slightly in or out. Although, sometimes they would be walking across the bottom of the tank finding stuff to eat.

I never noticed them bothering the fish or could ever tie a fish loss to them being there, although I know others have said they can prey on fish resting on the bottom when the lights are out. Never had that problem myself. I kept the temperature in the mid 70s range, fed some sinking food to the corys and kuhlis that shared the same tank and they seemed to like it, too.

Climbing? Oh yeah! They don't climb the glass, but they can shimmy up any air line hosing and try their hand at escaping where the tube comes through the lid! And, they can get up into your HOB against the current, so it is best to have a tight fitting lid or at least a screen over the tank. They aren't as adept at it as an octopus, but they aren't slouches when it comes to escape.

Can't say I know that much about them. I do know that crabs in general are very, very messy (kind of like ducks). If you keep a lot of them they will produce a heavy bio-load and they will contribute to that sea-food market smell we love so well, coming out of your aquarium! lol I won't be keeping them in my new 75G as I know now that they prefer land and this just isn't that kind of set-up.

But, they are really cool creatures... vampires, fiddlers and others.

Edited August 30, 2023 by JChristophersAdventures

[Lennie]

I wanted to correct a mistake that's going on here to make sure nobody makes the same mistake.

I bought my crabs as "vampire crabs". I also saw some other sites selling mine as Vampire crabs too.

 

Well, they are not!

They are actually Lepidothelphusa SP crabs. So this is important because they don't have exact same needs. In case anyone wants to learn more, check this video out:

 

I feel like this wrong naming is sometimes more dangerous than we think about and may result in the damage of a life due to different care needs.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Lennie

[Guppysnail]

On 10/27/2023 at 8:56 AM, Lennie said:

I feel like this wrong naming is sometimes more dangerous than we think about and may result in the damage of a life due to different care needs.

I used to laugh at the constant use of Latin binomials. Over time and falling to this exact issue I learned the absolute value of those long impossible to pronounce names.