Mudskippers and crabs?

[Boxermom]

I already have a couple of red claw crabs in a brackish setup. I've been thinking about getting a couple of Indian Mudskippers as well. Does anyone know if it would be possible to keep them together? My crabs, both of which appear to be female from what I can tell, seem to be pretty docile with each other, but I've never tried them with anything other than a snail thus far.

[sstimac]

yeah that would work just fine boxermom. Mangrove style setups with various crabs and mudskippers are becoming more and more popular. i would recommend some rocks, wood, etc. that protrude from the water for the mudskippers. i've thought about starting a setup like this, just haven't found space for it yet and have been unable to convince the wife to let me get another tank.

[sstimac]

how are you able to sex to the red claw crabs? i haven't read anything on the sexing of them. thanks.

[Boxermom]

Thanks. The crabs currently have a piece of driftwood that juts out of the water for them to climb up on, but since driftwood will eventually start rotting, I'm looking into either mangrove or artificial driftwood stuff.

Males allegedly have much larger claws than females. You can see pictures of a female and male here:
http://www.geocities.com/elgecko1989/crab.html Both of mine have claws like in the first picture. I know that dungeoness type crabs can be sexed by their "flap" but haven't had a chance to examine these two. The molts have a flap that indicates female if the same is true for them, but since they both look identical, I can't tell which molt belongs to which crab. They tend to molt about the same time.

[kass]

I have 2 indian mudskippers and 2 male fiddler crabs together. I dont know much about redclaw crabs, but the skippers get along great with the fiddlers and are often found side by side.
I would recommend more land areas. My mudskippers spend like 95% of their time on land or in the very shallow areas where they're not fully submerged.
Great little fish with lots of personality, similar to puffers.

[Boxermom]

No worries, if I do it, there will be more land areas. Red claws have much smaller claw so I think they'll be ok.

[vuphy]

we've had several redclaws, and all but one of them hid from our fish. the one that didnt would actually try to catch our puffers, luckily he never got a hold of one. though he did catch and eat ghost shrimp on occasion, and once he draw blood from my GF while she was hand feeding him.

in our next tank upgrade we are also looking to have mudskippers and crabs once again.

[nmonks]

Red claws have much smaller claw so I think they'll be ok.

That's a bad thing. The giant claws of fiddler crabs are for display, and are basically useless for anything else. Fiddlers eat mud, extracting algae and protozoans, and so are essentially harmless. They might eat a dying fish, but that's about it.

Red claw crabs have fully functional, powerful claws. They will eat fish. it isn't common by any means, but I certainly wouldn't mix them with any fish *smaller* than they are. What species of mudskipper is the "Indian Mudskipper"? Try and get a Latin name: 'skippers range from 8 cm dwarfs through to 30 cm giants, and the big guys are very, very aggressive.

Richard Mleczko's mudskipper site is the probably the onl resource worth bookmarking when it comes to 'skippers and gobies. He's kept lots of species over many years, and collects them from the wild. I'm pleased to say he wrote the 'skipper and mangrove sections of my book, too.

Cheers, Neale

[Boxermom]

Indian mudskipper is Periophthalmus novemradiatus var. Franksaquarium.com says its 4". I could also go with the Boleophthalmus boddarti, which I believe is about double that size.

I normally never consider putting fish with anything with claws, but thought these two might go together well. If not, that's fine. I can just set up a separate tank for the mudskippers, or do without.

[kass]

Thanks for posting that site neale. It had been down for a while and I couldn't find it. I see it has changed location.

The redcrabs claws do look pretty thick and powerful. I've had the fiddlers catch my finger in their claw and its not very powerful or sharp.

[nmonks]

Kass -- Richard had problems with his ISP, which is why I'm hosting it for the time being. It was too good a site to lose!

Boxermom -- Frank makes an effort to ID his fish properly, so I'd trust his names. However, I personally wouldn't touch Boleophthalmus with a bargepole. I'm told by people who know about these things that it only eats a certain kind of algae, and almost always dies in home aquaria unless you go out of your way to provide a rich algal "slime" on the mudflat that they can eat.

A four inch 'skipper with red-claw crabs might work, but personally I'd go with fiddler crabs instead, or maybe even one of the brackish water land hermit crabs. Apparently many of the land hermit crabs sold as pets do fine dipping into brackish water periodically.

Cheers, Neale

[Boxermom]

Well I'd go with fiddlers except for the fact that I already have red claws. I'll stay away from the Boleos then, which should be easy since Frank's out of stock of those. I've already got a lot going on in my life right now so I'm not in a rush to do anything anyway, at least not for the next several months. By which time I may have decided to do something else altogether. Just looking at options for now. Thanks for the help!