The Puffer Forum

haha your crabs sound quite mischievess. Yeh i have a filter and heater but they've never been knocked off lol. They do push at them but only to get on top or go past them.
Ive heard they get grumpyer as they get older, so maybe its that

Yes, my crabs are definitely mischievious, they are always working on something. Well I did a little more redecorating tonight, got more sand ... it's still not exactly like I want it, but it's slowly getting better.

Here's some photos:





Here's the part that I added the most sand to, to try and give them some "dry" land



Don't know if you can see him very good, but my big male is hiding behind the rock



And here's one of my females freaking out because I moved things around



I haven't seen them using the ladder yet, but I only just added it yesterday, so they may get around to using it before long. I can't believe that we went out shopping today and I forgot to get food for the RLC's -- but hubby will be bringing some home in the morning, so all is not lost!

thats an awesome set up, looks like a play area now!lol
how do you know the difference between the male and females?

I was brought up on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, and crabbing was a big part of our life ... so I learned early on to tell which crabs were males and which were females. It's all to do with the pattern on their "apron" --or what's on their "belly". That determines which are males and which are females. The man I got my RLC's from thought that only the males had one claw that is bigger than the other, but that's not what you go by .... you cannot go wrong if you sex them by what's on their apron.

Thanks for the comments on the tank ... I still wish I could keep the water retained more, but it will have to do for now. If I could just find some rubber, I might be able to make a better dam ... but they'd probably find some way to get it off, they seem to work on everything!

haha cool, so what pattern do you look out for on the apron?
coz my 3 have all got the same shaped aprons, and they are the same as the other 2 i used to have. but they all look quite different in colours

Okay, I found some photos to show you the difference ... but now there are always some variations, so the RLC's won't look EXACTLY like this, but you should get the idea-

Here's a male crab:



And here's a female crab:



I hope this helps you identify your crabs. I would not go by how they are coloured or their claws, but the apron is the most reliable way of telling the sex. Let me know what you find.

Yeh, thats what i thought i was looking for. Pretty sure they're all males then. Billy (the newest one) is scratching himself alot, and i remember mike doing that before he malted. so maybe its a sign lol.

i havent seen anymore fighting but the majority of time i think they've been sleepin so we'll see lol

Well maybe you will be lucky and your males won't fight .... but I'd be ready for it just in case, as I have heard that they get a little more aggressive as they get older.

I wish my big male would molt. I've had them now for several months and so far it's been only the one female to molt.

well i think they do have some control over wen they molt, as in they can wait till they think they have enough time without being disturbed by any other crabs. I think thats why shortly after gary died, and mike was on his own, he molted. So i think maybe it takes them longer wen they have other crabs around them all day, coz they're scared of being killed when they do it?

check this out

the first crab nearer the camera is the new one billy, and the crab that comes in is the nasty one Sky

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Hey that was very cool .... I loved the way he was trying to get that stick of food and actually did get it! They really are very cool creatures, and I love having them. But now the more I see your set-up, the more I want to change mine to be more like yours. You see, right now, I can only have about 3 inches of water, and I like how deep yours is. I will have to see about getting a piece of glass and siliconing it in there.

Question: When you put your piece of glass in there, and siliconed it in, what did you do with your crabs? Did you end up putting them back in the tank right away? Because silicone should dry for at least 24-hours before coming in contact with water, so I'm just concerned what I would do with mine if I siliconed a piece of glass in. I'd have to remove most of the rocks and stones too, so I have a clean surface to silicone the glass to. I'm not sure where I could put the crabs while I work on the tank. Also, did you silicone the bottom of the glass too, or just the sides?

I am ordering a UV light off eBay, it's made for reptiles, but it's got waterproof caps on the ends, so that will be good. I think if mine gets some UV light it might help their shells. I was talking to the guy at the LFS that has them, and he was saying that he thinks they need the extra UV light, so that's my next project. I will have to spend about £23 to do it, but that's not outrageous.

You're doing really good with yours though.

The UV sounds like a cool idea, do you mean u'd put them in the water?that would be cool, if you could get different colours too. Think il have to look into that as well haha.

basically, i only had mike at the time, and i put him in an old fish tank for the night. Just aenuf water so he could submerge and the bridge so he could get out, and hide underneath. Put the heater in too.

then in the big tank, i moved all the stones out of the way, wiped the area where i was going to put the glass (not with anything just a cloth, didnt bother using any chemicals or anything like it advises) and then worked out where i wanted the glass.

then i glued the bottom and the sides, and the glass stood up straight away so i didnt have to get anything to hold it. put alot of glue on it just to be sure, and left it for probably 24 hours. I just felt the glue and it was nice and hard (well soft but not wet or sticky) and then put water in to test it. It was fine so i set up the tank and put mike back in.
ive moved things around a few times since then just to try and find the perfect set up, and i still get the urge to change it now but i havn't recently.
im going to clean the whole thing out over christmas, like all the gravel and stuff coz they've pood alot and rainbows started to dig up the soil in the plant. I think i want to get and underwater plant, but last time i had them the crabs just destroyed them lol.The Problem with putting glass in is that once its in place, you cant move it. Id like to make my water area a little bit bigger now, but i can't, so bare that in mind if you do get some glass.Maybe a bit more than just a 3rd of water, maybe even half and half?

I think I got you confused about the UV light. The ones I am talking about are not submersible, the only reason I mentioned the end caps being waterproof is because most of the UV lights are made for reptiles and not for usage with being around water, but this particular light I've ordered is made to be around water BUT not in water.
However, I do have a pink flourescent light that is submersible, it goes completely underwater, but it's not UV of course. In fact, I just recently ordered a white one just like it to go into another of my puffer tanks, as the pink is just too much like a nightclub for my liking. So that might be an option for you if you want something that actually goes under the water.

And if I do get a piece of glass to put into my tank for a retaining wall, I'm not sure what I would do with my crabs because I don't have any other tanks that are empty ... so I would have to get a plastic container or something to house them while the silicone was drying. Thing is, it's going to involve alot of work on my part because now I've got sand and pebbles in that tank and you know how that is once it's in there, it's hard to remove completely without taking it entirely apart, of course that's an option .... just depends on how much time I want to invest into doing it. But I like how clean your water looks, mine always looks dirty and nasty. Of course because I have 3 crabs, I tend to put some of their pellet food in the water, so everyone gets something to eat .... that makes the water dirty, even with the filter.

Yeah I will have to give this all a good bit of thought ..... what's best for the crabs, as well as how I might be able to see them and enjoy them (that's the whole idea of having them afterall).

haha cool, well let me know if you do anything. Im goin back home next week so the crabs get to take a journey lol will be a good place for them though coz they wont be by any doors or loud noises at home

Hey I've noticed that since I put all that new sand in the tank, and made that big hill, the crabs have dug burrows into the sand. Last night, when I lifted off the top to feed them, two of them were down in the holes, and it was funny to see them peering out at me. When I says burrows, they are probably 3-4 inches deep, and would probably be deeper if the sand were deeper. But it made me feel good to see them doing that because that's the sort of thing they would be doing in the wild ...so that's a good thing.

I went ahead and paid for that UV light today, so I should have it in less than a week. I can't wait to see how it works out with having a light in the lid, it will allow me to see what they are doing better and hopefully the UV will be good for them.

I also found a piece of glass today, and didn't even realise that I've had it all along. I have a very small tank that I breed ramshorn snails in for my puffers, and it's got a glass lid to it, just simply a piece of glass made to fit the dimensions of the tank. I could use that for my retaining wall and buy a piece of plastic to put over the snails tank. I think I might try this project this weekend because I will need to remove the crabs and put them in something else temporarily while I remove some of the rocks and sand (should be alot of fun) in order to get the glass in there and silicone it in place. I might actually have to remove ALL the substrate in order to do it correctly. Will be alot of work, but will be worth it in the end. Then they can dig without fear of their burrow getting flooded.

I will keep you posted as to what I do and how it turns out.

How far will you be travelling with the crabs?

thats cool, i might buy some sand then haha.
Its just over an hour drive, but i'll leave them in the tank with a bit of water im sure they'll be fine.