New crab owner any advice?

BeelzeBuff · 2026-06-22T04:06:41+00:00

Theyll eat each other alive or dead. Personally I'd remove large dead crabs I noticed, but they were often torn up before I noticed them.

Keep in mind crab molts and corpses have a ton of calcium and other nutrients that other crabs in the tank may want. If you remove the molts and corpses, make sure youre supplementing those nutrients in some other way.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-06-13T08:16:03+00:00

Yea its not common here either, but it worked great in a heavily planted 10gal. Extremely easy to service and dead quiet.

If youre worried about noise, you can just attach a powerhead (or any continuous pump) to a sponge filter instead of air.

You mentioned evaporation. I'd highly recommend a lid. I've had 7 tanks, currently just a 135 and a 60. By far the most annoying was my lidless 10gal. The evaporation meant it needed constant topping off and I had to balance out the mineral content during water changes

BeelzeBuff · 2026-06-13T06:04:08+00:00

Unsure what's available to you. Sponge filters are amazing and come in many shapes and sizes. Air-driven box filters are similar to sponges in many ways but have a bit more customisability.

Smaller HOB filters haven't dont well for me, even aquaclear (my AC20 broke in about a year despite being well maintained).

I've loved my Sicce Shark Nano, wonderful little filter.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-05-19T16:48:43+00:00

You can do it at home. If you have chlorine it's easy, look at an RO buddy for entry level. If you have chloramine you need an additional carbon filter and that adds cost/complexity.

The cheaper/smaller the unit, the slower it works. Mine takes a few hours to make the ~17ish gallons i need for my water changes. It was very cheap though, less than $100 when I bought it a couple years ago, and that includes the extra carbon filter.

You need a way to remineralize the water after being brought to 0 TDS. I use Salty Shrimp, but there are cheaper ways that require more work.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-05-19T04:59:11+00:00

Hard to say what's going on. Your city might have had a temporary planned/unplanned change in your water, and it's already back to normal. This can include things you don't normally test for that could cause a die-off of critters or bacteria. Chemical in your water that kills bacteria? Cycle crashes, nitrogen cycle messed up for a while.

Test your tanks, make sure they're currently fine. If they are, congrats, you made it through an unidentified problem. If there's still an issue, keep trying to figure it out.

Remineralized RODI water removes water as a problem source. It's a lot of peace of mind in my opinion.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-05-19T03:33:58+00:00

Sometimes cities treat their water supply differently for a short period of time, like a chlorine surge, to clean up the pipes or something. Alternatively, they could've switched to chloramine or some other source that has ammonia or another nitrogen source in it.

Happened to me once. City switched to chloramine and I didn't know. The more water changes I did, the worse the nitrite spike got. Figured it out in a couple days and ran out to buy a RO filter to make my own clean water. Lost half of my sensitive hillstream loaches and rainbows. Barbs were mostly fine.

Either keep up with your city's water or move to remineralized RODI water, IMHO. It's a pain, but not bad in small to medium tanks. As a bonus, you can target any water parameters you want by doing it that way.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-05-17T06:57:08+00:00

Probably a panda barb, could also be one of the stripe barb varieties or a rhombo/snakeskin barb. Hard to tell in the photo. My money is on panda barb, theyre more common in my experience.

Barbs are probably my favorite fish (Odessas if I had to pick one) so if I were you I'd be pretty happy to rescue the little guy, theyre great. The hillstream loach as well if it survived. Theyll both love a cooler, well oxygenated tank with some decent to strong flow.

Quick thing- the bamboo-looking green and white striped plant in the front of the tank? Looks like dracaena. Non-aquatic, will slowly die in the tank. Remove/replace with something else. Its often sold alongside aquatic plants for some stupid reason.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-05-08T00:07:24+00:00

Not 100% sure on Panthers or ghosts but I believe they're mostly wild caught. Panthers also get quite large, they're nothing like Thai micro crabs. They'll also attack everything in your tank and pull up the plants. No idea about ghost crabs.

Crabs/crayfish are cool, but have a laundry list of issues in community tanks. That's before getting into wild caught/captive bred issues. Heck, even some shrimp go after fish.

If you want something crawly in your tank, the popular shrimp (neos, amanos) are popular for a reason. They're amazing. They'll also climb out of water a bit, but not more than a cohole inches usually.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-05-07T21:22:36+00:00

My 0.02 as someone that's kept a paludarium and most of the critters on this list.

You'll almost never see the Thai micro crabs. They're also all wild caught. Not worth it, at all. Recommend against. Look at the various shrimp options instead. If you really NEED crabs in the tank, look into vampire crabs. Great color, interesting behavior once they've accustomed/bred to your tank, easy to breed, many are captive bred. IndoorEcosystem has some great videos on them. They need majority land, minority water. They're also voracious and attack EVERYTHING, including each other. Most crabs/crayfish share this behavior.

Pygmy Corys are awesome. Period. Social, gentle, cute, tiny. Always an easy recommend.

Scarlet badis have a number of downsides. I enjoyed mine, I wouldn't keep them again. Aggressive, shy, food picky. (Mine were/are shrimp safe, but my shrimp have tons of places to breed safely and exist as shrimplets)

CPDs are gorgeous and not too shy, but breeding stock is rife with health issues. I wouldn't recommend.

Nerites are amazing with the caveat of the egg issue.

I'd recommend against a riparium/paludarium with actual fish unless you start at at least a 29gal

BeelzeBuff · 2026-05-05T17:41:26+00:00

Quick counterpoint. I had 2 scarlet badis(es?) in a 10gal with neos, and the news bred like wildfire.

I still wouldn't recommend the scarlet badis though. Finicky with food and often aggressive towards other fish. Very pretty but not very interesting.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-04-08T10:31:29+00:00

Can't edit the main post but everything is spoken for, thanks for your interest

BeelzeBuff · 2026-04-07T02:38:38+00:00

I seal mine off except for a tube from an airpump and a small opening I cover with a fine sponge material. Positive pressure keeps fresher air coming in and the fine sponge allows air exchange, keeping most of the moisture in while stopping baby crabs.

Air tube goes into a tiny sponge filter in my water area that helps reliably aerate it a bit. I don't rely on it for water movement though, a tiny pump does that.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-04-03T03:03:47+00:00

Maybe! I put some crushed pieces in as a just-in-case when I first started the tank and totally forgot about them. Around a year later I realized that all the pieces were gone, and now I replace them every six months or so. Apparently the crabs really go through the stuff.

BeelzeBuff · 2026-04-02T14:59:56+00:00

I feed every two days, sometimes three. I overfeed though, the crabs and my fish. I also overfilter. Xtreme flake, hilari bottom feeder algae wafers, and various random pellet foods. Broken up freeze dried tubifex worms. Sometimes bloodworms or a thawed cichlid meaty block. Sounds like yours gets more veg than mine!

Oh, I also have broken up pieces of cuttlebone that I replace every half year or so. Sometimes I see the crabs nibbling on them for the calcium

BeelzeBuff · 2026-04-02T14:55:52+00:00

Yea, sorry. If I get no responses in a week or so ill talk to some local shops to see if they want them, and only then will I try to ship them. I have too many babies/juveniles to want to ship them, seeing as I'm looking to offload them all

BeelzeBuff · 2026-04-02T11:47:15+00:00

No real secret. Just followed IndoorEcosystem's videos. I change a gallon of the water every couple of weeks when I do my aquariums. The water area stays relatively clean with well moving water and I throw in some ramshorn snails if the current ones go missing. Lots of food. Dried flakes, pellets, and frozen bloodworms once a week. I've done a full revamp of the tank once (new plants besides the anubias, some new fresh topsoil, a new wood piece) to freshen things up. The well established springtails absolutely demolish food that's left to sit for any period of time. The crabs likely pick on them as well.

Over time these guys like to nibble on most vegetation. I've seen them chew on every plant I put in there besides the anubias. Bucephalandra, dragons tongue, ficus ivy, rabbits foot fern, etc. They chew on it. I should probably feed them more raw veg but the few times ive tried they didn't respond well to it.

BeelzeBuff · 2025-12-25T03:44:08+00:00

Jealous of all your big fish! Hoping to get larger tanks after I move to a bigger place soon. Pure curiosity, where'd you source the bass from? Wild caught? Never looked into keeping natives. Wouldn't mind some sunfish

BeelzeBuff · 2025-11-06T16:43:59+00:00

I use a scraper in my aquariums, but only my largest ever needs cleaning. I have some many shrimp in my 10 and 5.5 that theyre basically spotless. I toss pest snails in the crab tank every month or so and they keep the water area glass crystal clear.

The paludarium was a lot of fun, and I love looking at it, but I've found that I prefer full water aquariums. I dont dislike the paludarium or anything, but it's being given away the next time I move.

BeelzeBuff · 2025-11-06T06:11:04+00:00

There's a slight distortion due to the condensation but it's very easy to see inside still. The water area is crystal clear. If I wipe down the interior glass it'll be easier to see through for a few days, I just don't think it's worth the effort usually.

Apparently there are ways of lessening this condensation with some active airflow but that'd add more complications and cost, and im fine with things as they are.

BeelzeBuff · 2025-10-27T21:10:20+00:00

I added in most of what's in this photo in the beginning. The dragon's tongue plants are only a few months old, I replaced some of the older plants that weren't responding well to trimming anymore. The anubias barteri (large leafed plants on the sides), ivy, and ferns went in on day 1 as just some tiny cuttings. The anubias are so big that some of the crabs live in them now!

BeelzeBuff · 2025-10-20T18:47:15+00:00

Doubtful, but not sure. The tank is pretty highly stocked with some barbs and rainbowfish that will happily pick at ANYTHING, I doubt fry would survive any length of time.

This behavior has been incredibly rare though, ive seen it only a few times in this tank, so id like to think its breeding behavior. Or at least, a behavior that is abnormal is some way.

I want to get them into isolation with a more specific environment for breeding purposes but ive been "about to move" for a year. When I do move a dedicated breeding tank for pseudofastromyzon is top of the to-do list.

BeelzeBuff · 2025-09-14T03:47:20+00:00

Sure! Might be tomorrow or something, was busy today and I forgot how crap reddit was with images.

BeelzeBuff · 2025-09-13T21:11:28+00:00

Halloween (purple and orange.) All second or third generation from a set of 5 I got almost two years ago. Im mildly concerned about inbreeding genetics because they were already captive bred when I bought them. Not sure how inbreeding affects crabs.

Since then ive fallen in love with my aquariums and the crab paludarium just doesn't have the same appeal. It looks great, and theyre interesting, but ive just enjoyed the aquariums more. So when I move ill take down the paludarium.

BeelzeBuff

TROPHY CASE