Hallo-some questions from England!

[FishForLife2001]

Hallo, ich heiße Ryan. Mein Deutsch it nicht so gut.

So I will speak English here but I can understand basic German, hence why I joined. I keep four aquariums- 70l, 44l, 30l and 28l. The 70 is a soft water community with bamboo and amano shrimp. The 44 is a hard water community with cherry shrimp and neritina snails. The 30 is my red claw crab tank, the subjects of the majority of the aforementioned questions. The 28 is my macrobrachium pilimanus tank.

As I said earlier my name is Ryan, and I am 13 years old. Aside from my aquariums I have a corn snake.


So, the questions.
What should a psuadosesarma moeshi tank consist of? What parameters? Size? Basically all information. I started keeping these a few months ago but English crab information is very poor and limited and it seems that I have made many mistakes.

The current tank has a large area of land (see image, bottom) with a smaller water area. I have two males. Brackish water of two teaspoons per gallon.

What happened to the crab pictured below? Basically it moulted above land which was odd, with white liquid. Then, limbs started falling off until it died. All I know is the liquid was likely liquid flesh.

The images:

Current crab tank-


The progression of ones illness-
First symptoms. Had only lost one cheliped at this time.

Lots of loss.

Lost all but two pleopods.

After taking part once death arrived. Virtually nothing left inside.

[Ollie Mengedoht]

Dear Ryan, welcome aboard at our Panzerwelten!

English should be no problem – You even found the english section Yourself. General information for Pseudosesarma crabs You find in our species database: http://www.panzerwelten.de/forum/showthr...p?tid=1749 . There is much to read for the beginning.  We'Re glad You've found us and will try to be of assistance as far as possible.

To tell You the truth Your tank for the crabs is quite small. In a tank that small the males will fight over territory, usually that's mostly a little shoving and more threatening with the pincers, but with that size it might even get heavier. Usually we say a group of one male and two females can be kept maybe in a 60cm tank (or 54 l, the usual standard tank at least here in Germany). That's a little terse but in a good structured tank it is possible.

The look of Your tank is quite nice although I think I can't see the crabs can dig burrows on the land part? They are used to live in their burrows. After import and purchase it might take some weeks or months until they adapted enough that they start digging but on the long term they surely need land parts where they can dig. We always advise coco humus (known especially in herpetology). Do You think You can reorganize or get a bigger tank for them?

Now to the crab with the problem. Obviously it wanted to moult but something'S gone very wrong. We cannot tell what but we've seen these symptoms. Moulting is a quite complex process – that's starts directly after one moulting and last with the next. So after moulting and hardening again a crab starts to prepare for the next one. It involves biochemical and heavy "renovations" inside the body and is not done with the few minutes of the obviuos watchable part of the moulting itself. So there are many things that can go wrong or contribute: stress (by import/transportation, competition for territory, females and/or food), malnourishment, missing calcium etc. Sadly we will not find out what was wrong with Your crab. It only shows You how important it is that we try to give our crabs the best environment we can, so we do our best to avoid health problems for them, altough there still remain factors You cannot manipulate, like stress during the import, parasites, pre-existing defects.

So I hope I could give a first few answers and encourage You to go on – with crab keeping and asking further questions.  That's what this forum is for.

Oh, I forgot two things. First, here are useful info threads too:
Food list
Hazards when setting up a tank and parts of 
FAQ

Secondly, we would be interested in wether You are learning German in school or what? It is not very common in the UK, is it?

[FishForLife2001]

Dear Ryan, welcome aboard at our Panzerwelten!

English should be no problem – You even found the english section Yourself. General information for Pseudosesarma crabs You find in our species database: http://www.panzerwelten.de/forum/showthr...p?tid=1749 . There is much to read for the beginning.  We'Re glad You've found us and will try to be of assistance as far as possible.

To tell You the truth Your tank for the crabs is quite small. In a tank that small the males will fight over territory, usually that's mostly a little shoving and more threatening with the pincers, but with that size it might even get heavier. Usually we say a group of one male and two females can be kept maybe in a 60cm tank (or 54 l, the usual standard tank at least here in Germany). That's a little terse but in a good structured tank it is possible.

The look of Your tank is quite nice although I think I can't see the crabs can dig burrows on the land part? They are used to live in their burrows. After import and purchase it might take some weeks or months until they adapted enough that they start digging but on the long term they surely need land parts where they can dig. We always advise coco humus (known especially in herpetology). Do You think You can reorganize or get a bigger tank for them?

Now to the crab with the problem. Obviously it wanted to moult but something'S gone very wrong. We cannot tell what but we've seen these symptoms. Moulting is a quite complex process – that's starts directly after one moulting and last with the next. So after moulting and hardening again a crab starts to prepare for the next one. It involves biochemical and heavy "renovations" inside the body and is not done with the few minutes of the obviuos watchable part of the moulting itself. So there are many things that can go wrong or contribute: stress (by import/transportation, competition for territory, females and/or food), malnourishment, missing calcium etc. Sadly we will not find out what was wrong with Your crab. It only shows You how important it is that we try to give our crabs the best environment we can, so we do our best to avoid health problems for them, altough there still remain factors You cannot manipulate, like stress during the import, parasites, pre-existing defects.

So I hope I could give a first few answers and encourage You to go on – with crab keeping and asking further questions.  That's what this forum is for.

Oh, I forgot two things. First, here are useful info threads too:
Food list
Hazards when setting up a tank and parts of 
FAQ

Secondly, we would be interested in wether You are learning German in school or what? It is not very common in the UK, is it?

Thank you And congratulations on building and maintaining such a great site.

I was recommended to join here by a Dutch person on an English forum. His forum name there is Erik-perhaps he is on this forum too?


I suspected that there were a few problems. I do witness occasional fights. Do you know what it means when they 'wave' their legs at each other? I have seen this many times. Unfortunately females seem to be uncommon here but I will try to get some. What size tank would I need for 2 males and 4 females?

There is a exposed area of sand behind the rocks but I doubt this is big enough. I will be able to get a bigger tank eventually but I need to replace the 70 (issue with the unit it's on, caused irreversible damage) to a 180 litre with designated stand etc and I am getting a bigger vivarium for my snake soon so money will be tight.

After it moulted it did regrow its shell. Somebody on another forum suggested that it could have been that it produced too much enzymes used to dissolve its shell to aid with removal and dissolved itself-possible?

I certainly will go on with crab keeping- they are awesome!

Thanks for the links, I will do some reading.


I do German at school. It is fairly common as far as I know, along with French and sometimes Spanish (usually is primary school though). To be honest the language education here is pretty bad though.

[Ollie Mengedoht]

Good evening Ryan and thanks for Your compliment

We have an Erik I know of and I think we have one or two members from the Netherlands too… Don't know if it's the Erik You speak of.

The grabbing and fingering with the legs is one of their means of communicating, yes. Something similiar You might see when they stamp their claws on the ground or presentate them to the opposite.

For a group of some 2,4 we would suggest an 80 cm tank with at least 40 cm height – IF it is used with more than one levels (e.g. land parts elevated on pillars) and good structured.

The enzyme-story seems a little strange to me and I don't think it happened like this but anyway, we don't know and we can't change it either. We only can say: Something went wrong with that moulting.

I cannot judge how You speak or understand German but I may say that Your manners and behaviour are quite distinguished for a 13 year old. We're looking forward to Your developing questions

[Erik]

Hi,

I'm German though. Must be another Erik.

Best regards!

[FishForLife2001]

Good evening Ryan and thanks for Your compliment

We have an Erik I know of and I think we have one or two members from the Netherlands too… Don't know if it's the Erik You speak of.

The grabbing and fingering with the legs is one of their means of communicating, yes. Something similiar You might see when they stamp their claws on the ground or presentate them to the opposite.

For a group of some 2,4 we would suggest an 80 cm tank with at least 40 cm height – IF it is used with more than one levels (e.g. land parts elevated on pillars) and good structured.

The enzyme-story seems a little strange to me and I don't think it happened like this but anyway, we don't know and we can't change it either. We only can say: Something went wrong with that moulting.

I cannot judge how You speak or understand German but I may say that Your manners and behaviour are quite distinguished for a 13 year old. We're looking forward to Your developing questions

In the space I have I can fit a 63cm long tank, with 40cm of height, so would a tank with these dimensions that goes back much more than usual suffice? Or can I decrease the female numbers at all? I appreciate that this is not ideal- indeed if a good source of information was available to me prior to joining here I wouldn't have started with two males. Of course I would plan it in such a way to avoid issues as well as I could and I don't mind compromising aesthetics to provide a better home for the animals.

I thought the enzyme thing might have been unlikely.

Thank you!

[FishForLife2001]

Hi,

I'm German though. Must be another Erik.

Best regards!

Hello, I guess he is not on here then.