Actinia equina
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Species details: Carcinus maenas
Shore crabs are easy to catch and ubiquitous, and they adapt extremely well to aquarium life, being tolerant of high temperatures, fluctuating salinity, and poor water conditions. I still found that adding them to your tank is a very, very bad idea, as they are highly aggressive and make short work of their tankmates, including fish. Even small crabs grow rapidly, and they can be very difficult to remove, especially if the tank contains a lot of rock. They also spend most of their time hidden away out of sight, so the only sign of their presence is the dwindling number of other livestock. Luckily they are easily lured into traps. I would not recommend this species, unless kept on a tank of its own.
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I am a fisherman and carcinus maenus is very good for fishing bait. Could you tell me the best way to set up an equarium for some.
ReplyDeletekind regards
Curtis Skinner
Hi Curtis,
ReplyDeleteIf you just want to keep them as bait, the best thing would probably be to keep them in a large vat or water butt. Ideally it would be rather squat and wide, because the crabs will only stay at the bottom. The more ground surface you have, the more crabs you can keep. Provided the water volume is great enough, you could stock to about 2 adult crabs per square foot. You will also need some form of shelter to keep the crabs from eating each other, particularly after moulting. I've used lengths (6-12") of PVC tubing of various diameters.
I would keep the whole thing outside in a shaded spot and sheltered from the rain. If you want to keep many crabs (I assume you do!), you will need relatively strong filtration, or VERY frequent water changes. You can feed them fish scraps, but that tends to foul the water very quickly, and I prefer to use the sort of pellets thay use for trout farming. Those are cheap and not as messy.
Sorry for the late reply!