Rainbow Land Crabs (Cardisoma armatum)

[ste123]

sounds great. you should get some pics up.its hard to imagine it the way you described. i think they do like to go in the water end alot more, mine do anyway.

my crabs are doin great so far, still really energetic, and taking food form my fingers. Gettin another one next week haha

[pufferpuggirl]

We stopped up at the shop we got ours from yesterday, and they have changed the price of the crabs even lower, because the manager wants to get fiddler crabs in, in place of the RLC's. I wish I could have more ... but I already think I've got mine in too small of a tank. Thing is, I was looking at the tank the shop has theirs in... and it's all water with some bogwood and rocks sticking up, and the crabs look really happy. There were many of them under the water, going inside of plastic tubes that were on the bottom of the tank. Now I'm wondering if maybe I should have left mine in a mostly water tank. The only thing I didn't like is that the food seemed to get yucky really quick, and almost looked as if it had a sort of fungus on it. I definitely need to think of a better set up than what I have .... I'm not happy with the way it looks now. But I know one thing, the crabs are in the water more since I changed it around ... so now I'm rethinking everything!!!

[ste123]

haha fair enough, maybe you need to get a heat mat for the land side of the tank? mine seem to enjoy the whole tank.

[pufferpuggirl]

Hmmm, actually my husband has a heat mat that he used for his snake, but the snake escaped about 3 months ago and we've not seen it since. So maybe I will try that and see what happens. But I still want to try and think of some way to improve this tank. We seen a tank at another LFS that would be absolutely fantastic to keep the crabs in. It had turtles in it, but there were ledges built into the tank wall, and it had like moss hanging and it
looked very natural. My mudskippers would have loved it too, actually the needs of the mudskippers and the land crabs are very similar, too bad I can't keep them all together, but the mudskippers are brackish so that would not work.
Anyway, I'm going to keep thinking of ways to improve this tank, and when I've got it right, I will take some photos for you.

Let me just ask .... where did you get that piece of glass that you siliconed into place to make the water stay in place?

[ste123]

lol was at a glass shop. like windows and doors and stuff. they had a section for cutting glass. only cost a pound. Its back home in cheshire though so a bit far away to go for some glass.

[pufferpuggirl]

Yeah, but at least it gives me an idea, and if I can find any glass shops around here, I might be able to do the same. Question though .... are the edges sharp, the top edge that the crabs would have contact with? I don't want them to end up cutting their bodies.

[eieio]

depending on the size of glass that you need, many times you can find a scrap that you can use.
do you have any old picture frames with glass? maybe a garage sale, neighbor, etc?
it's really easy to cut with an inexpensive glass cutter (hardware store).
the edges can be smoothed (!CAREFULLY!) with a bit of wet/dry sandpaper, or emery cloth wrapped around a small block of wood.
i love projects like this!
recycle when you can!

[ste123]

well i said it was for a fish tank, so they smoothed all the edges down.they dont want you to cut ur hands on it either do they.
yeh look for a glass shop should be something around. I havnt got any sand in my tank! thats the next purchase lol

[pufferpuggirl]

I just bought a bird ladder for their tank ... should be interesting. Speaking of sand, I think I've got too much in mine, so am going to take some out this weekend, when I do an overhaul.

[ste123]

haha, that sounds cool. I was looking for some steps or stairs for mine but cudnt find anything. Got the new crab today, within 10 seconds of him going in the tank, rainbow attacked him. There have been a few scuffles today but nothing serious, its all seemed to calm down now. They just seem to avoid each other. Im quite sure they're all males, despite me requesting females. But they all seem fine, ive put carrot in there,and they've all been climbing around the tank with carrots in their claws haha so funny watching them trying to get up to places with their claws full.
Hopin they will all get used to each other again, there wasn't any fighting before today between the other two (that i saw). might get some sand tomorow but don't really know where to put it. haha. do you have sand under water?cant imagine that would be easy to keep clean lol

[pufferpuggirl]

Funny that you posted tonight because I just did another re-decorating of the RLC tank. I still don't have it the way I want it, but it's slowly getting there. Each time I do something to it, it gets a little better. I know I said I thought I had too much sand, but I've actually added more tonight. What I'm doing is similar to what I did in my mudskippers tank, and the way my dwarf mudskippers tank is right now. I'm making a slope. The dry land is at the top where there's sand, then it slopes down and I've put a load of very small pebbles (to keep the sand from going into the water part), and then I've got a very lame retaining wall that doesn't do a very good job of keeping the water back, but it does help ... and then of course is the water part. When the tank was mostly water, I did have sand under the water, which isn't so different from how most of my puffer tanks are, so I'm use to dealing with sand in that respect. But since I've made this "water area" I've removed most of the sand so it's just bare tank, for the most part. Now, what I intend to do from here, until I can get a good piece of glass to make a retaining wall that actually "retains", is to get more sand. I'm going to add more sand and compact it down, so that it won't be affected by the water that's saturating the underneath. And thing is, tonight, when I put the tank back together, and the crabs went up the hill to the sandy part ... they started digging first thing. So I need to get that sand compacted or they will undermine the "hill" by digging down and allowing the water to come up to the surface, and if that happens, then it will all collapse.
When I did my mudskippers tank, once the sand is down and compacted, it will stay in place for the most part, with the help of the pebbles and stones to keep it in place. It's not perfect, but for the purpose I want to use it for, it will work okay, and it lasted for over a year in the mudskippers tank, and I only changed it around when I got 2 more mudskippers and wanted to give them a different set-up.
I'm not sure how I'm going to put the ladder in yet, but I think they might enjoy climbing on it, as they seem to enjoy climbing on the wires and the thin piece of bogwood that's in there.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that some weeks ago, I noticed that the digital thermometer that I have in their tank had a strange reading on the display ... so I looked in and from my point of view, it all looked fine, but when I tried to pull the probe out, I found out why the display had an odd reading -- they had cut the line!! The wire going to the probe was actually snapped off!! I'm guessing that it was done with their claw. Are yours destructive? Mine have "chewed" the turtle dock that I have in there. I had pieces of that floating around for a while. They seem to have stopped that (for now). I noticed that one of the suction cups holding the turtle dock on had been "chewed". Who knows what else they've vandalised. Apparently they have too much time on their hands!
You might want to keep an eye on your crabs .... I've read that they can, and sometimes will, kill another crab. That's why I was adamant about getting females. It's too bad that you aren't closer to Sheffield because that LFS wants to get rid of the remaining crabs they've got so he can get in some fiddler crabs. I have been toying with the idea of getting another ... but I think if I'm honest, I don't really have the space for another. I think I should probably stop at 3. Things appear to be going well for me, so I guess I should not mess with a good thing.
Oh, I gave mine a piece of orange slice tonight. I'm not sure if they will eat it, but I haven't been shopping lately and don't really have any fresh fruit or veggies here. I want to try them with apple as I've heard they will eat that. I bought some bananas for them, but they didn't seem very interested in them. I do think they ate it, but not enthusiastically.
Anyway, keep me informed of what's happening with your lot, I enjoy hearing about them. It's nice to know someone that also has RLC's, as I don't know anyone else that has them.

[ste123]

Well the old crabs were well behaved, apart from when gary escaped. i dont think they ever vandalised anything. But the new ones are alot more adventurous. I had a hut for them (it was edible) and they ate alot of that, so i had to get rid of it. They dont touch the plant thats in there though.I often see them running around with pebbles in their claws haha dno y. and they poo alot! and i mean alot. I sliced up sum carrot, and one of them hasnt been without carrot in his claw for 2 days, but he is eating them.so hes eating alot!
I used to feed them apple and they loved it. have you tried getting them to take it out of your hand? mine are scared of me, but when they realise im holding food they cum and crab it then hide away to eat.
Ive read that they can kill each other too, but from what ive seen whenever something starts one of them runs away, its just if they get too close to eachother. mike and gary used to fight all the time, and gary was alot bigger than mike but he never got hurt.

haha the new one is playin around in the water at the moment just explorin i love just sittin here and watchin them!

let me know how the tank goes, and il let you know if theres any trouble between my crabs

[pufferpuggirl]

Well since re-doing my tank, they have dug all around in the sand, there's sand all thrown up on the glass, but if that makes them happy, then that's fine with me. I think if I can just get some more sand, get that slope higher and more compact, then I will have a good set-up and I may not need to do any siliconing. I'm concerned about using the silicone anyway because I don't have any place I could put the crabs while I wait for the silicone to dry, which means I'd have to put them back into the tank with wet silicone and then I'd be afraid they would pull it off and eat it. So I may just keep with the design I have now and just build that slope higher and more compact. That will give them enough dry land and still have the water and the humidity too.

But I know what you mean about sitting and watching them. Ours are in the kitchen, so I can't really "sit", but I do find myself leaning against the counter-tops and watching them. I've put carrot in my tank too, and while I believe they were eating it, they didn't seem very excited about it, not like what you're describing to me with your guys. On the other hand, they did seem to like lettuce quite a bit. I think I will get more lettuce and some cucumber on Friday and see what they think of that. I'm afraid until then, they won't be getting much in the way of fresh food. But I think they can live on pellets until then as I doubt the LFS feeds them anything fresh and they seem to keep them alive for many months like that.

I have to say that mine don't appear to be that scared of me. When I first got them, if you stopped in front of the tank to look at them, they would all run to hide ... but now I can put my hand in the tank and do things and they won't budge. It's funny because sometimes, when I put my hand too close to the big guy, he will raise his leg at me (not his claw as you would expect, but his leg!). Makes me laugh every time.

I'm going to get more sand on Friday .... so will let you know how that goes once I get more sand in there and will try to get some pictures too.

[ste123]

haha sounds cool. mine are scared when i open the lid, but apart from that they've got used to me walking past them and looking at them. And if i put my hand up to them, they all lift their claws lol. As im looking at them now, it would appear the 2 smaller ones get on, they go near each other and just leave each other alone, but the slightly bigger one is getting agressive and its annoyin me lol.
went to pets at home in stoke today and they have 2 new rlc's in, and they're massive. They're both still really colourful, so i dont think they're even proper adults, but they're nearly the size of my hand. dont want mine to grow that big haha.

I've noticed that they do seem to prefer being in the water. The new one likes to wander around everywhere, but thats probably because hes still new. but the other 2 are more in the water than not. I might swap sides, so the larger side is water, and then just the small end for land if they want to go on it.but would need to move the heat mat, and your not suppose to take it off once youve put it on coz i think it looses its stick, so will need to have a good think about it.

was tempted to get sum red clawed crabs aswell, but i think if they went near the rlcs they'd get killed.

[pufferpuggirl]

I would be very hesitant to put different types of crabs together, even small ones can and will kill each other if they get the chance. I had a really nice red-claw and he had molted twice and I was quite fond of him, then I moved him from my snail tank into another tank and then added a different type crab that was slightly smaller than the red-claw. Well it was a stupid thing to do because the smaller one killed the red-claw, and I was not at all happy. I was going to feed the killer to my puffers, but when I took him out of the tank, and had him in a holding container, I got to watching him and he was just too cool to kill. It wasn't his fault that he killed the red-claw, that's just their nature and they do what they feel they need to do. So now it's living in my big tank with my MBU, F8's and redeye puffers .... and so far none of the puffers have found it, because I think if they did, they might eat it. But it's been living in there for about 4 months, so it's doing good.

One of the crabs at the LFS that we got our RLC's from has a female that is massive. I was really tempted to get her. I just wish I had the space for a bigger tank, because if I did, then I'd have several of them. And your RLC's will grow to be that big if they live long enough. They do get quite large. My male is sort of big, but not big like what's at the LFS.

I was disappionted to see today that the sand that I put in the other night has already been stamped down and it's all very moist, and the wetter it gets, the more it sinks down. I'm glad I can get another bag of sand on Friday, that tank is going to need it.

Do you have any sort of filter in your water part? I have a small filter, just to keep the water clean and have some circulation and they keep knocking it off the glass, so it falls to the bottom. I keep fixing it back and before long, it's back to being on the bottom again. I suppose it doesn't matter, as long as it's doing it's job. Thing is, when it's right on the bottom, the filter sponge tends to get bogged down with sand and it's a mess to get out.

I'm sorry that your big one is a bit aggressive ... thankfully I don't have that problem. The two smaller ones lock claws every once in a while, but it doesn't appear to be anything serious, and for the most part, they all get along really well together. I still say it makes a difference if you've got more males than females. Maybe your guy will tone down after a little time passes.