Striped Shore Crab

H. laoticus

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
1,017
Hi, has anyone kept these before? Some adults look like these beauties:



If anyone has any experience with them, I'd appreciate the help! My friend plans on keeping a few since they are plentiful here and from what I gather they don't seem too hard to care for, but I'd like insight from keepers on how well they do in captivity, what diet they fed their crabs, and how they kept them overall. Thanks for any help :)
 

ZephAmp

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 8, 2008
Messages
530
No clue on care but when I was in California I had so much fun catching these by hand. lol
It takes a certain amount of stealth, speed, and power (with the bigger ones! lol) to catch them, and of course the possible pinch adds more fun to the game.
Good luck keeping and breeding them. They're definitely an awesome creature. :p
 

dtknow

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 18, 2004
Messages
2,239
I would challenge anyone at finesse in catching these "Pachys" as we call em. They are a tons of fun to attempt to outwit.

Basically these need to be kept like other coldwater marine creatures. Cold clean filtered seawater. They spend lots of time out of water in the wild so it would be interesting to provide them that option in captivity. I'd simply set them up in large half filled aquarium with rocks and good filtration. A spray bar aimed over the emergent rocks will help keep them wet as is the case in the wild. They will eat anything-vegetable or animal. They use their spoon tipped claws to scrape algae from the rocks.
 
Last edited:

eelnoob

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 22, 2006
Messages
334
I want one!

Currently have two Moon and one patriot crabs.
 

H. laoticus

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
1,017
Yes, they are very fun to catch, especially when they only dash left or right lol
dtknow: hey, thanks for the info! The easier the care, the better :D
 

ZergFront

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
May 2, 2009
Messages
1,956
I would challenge anyone at finesse in catching these "Pachys" as we call em. They are a tons of fun to attempt to outwit.

Basically these need to be kept like other coldwater marine creatures. Cold clean filtered seawater. They spend lots of time out of water in the wild so it would be interesting to provide them that option in captivity. I'd simply set them up in large half filled aquarium with rocks and good filtration. A spray bar aimed over the emergent rocks will help keep them wet as is the case in the wild. They will eat anything-vegetable or animal. They use their spoon tipped claws to scrape algae from the rocks.
Man, wish I found this forum when I was a child. X-D

How do you circulate the water from the tank back to the spray bar? That sounds like an awesome idea. When I had them, they did stay above water a lot.

+1 for good filtration. Doesn't take a lot of crabs or crayfish before the tank reeks if the water isn't too clean. Since they are crustacean scavengers, they aren't too picky. There are a lot of food choices for them.
 

H. laoticus

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
1,017
Instead of a spray bar, I think you can just position stacked rocks under the area where the water pours out of the filter. The rocks give them land to climb on and the splashed water keeps them wet. It's kind of like a waterfall and it didn't look that bad when my friend and I tried it.
 
Top