Anyone know about Red Thai Crabs?

pombina

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Mark picked up 4 yesterday for our tank. Only after he did this did he research them...
One of them won't stay in the water, it climbs the plant and sits on the glass ledge around the top of the tank. We noticed its belly was different to the others and while reading about them on the internet, realised she is pregnant.
It did say they can't survive for more than 2 hours if they don't have access to their water but she does. Everytime we put her back in last night she just climbed out again. She's been there for about 13 hours now.
We didn't want to keep pushing her back in because she is obviously trying to protect her young but I can't even tell if she is alive.
Do you think we should put her back in the water again? Is she just frightened an looking for a safe place to lay her eggs? Or is she trying to kill herself?
I don't think the eggs would survive in our tank anyway because we have so many other fish but I don't want her to die.
We called her 'Jean the Angry Crab' because she looks soooo annoyed.
 

sharky

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do you have a quarentine tank?? or a small tank that you could keep her till the little crabs come??
 

arlyn

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Is she already carrying them in her tail, under her body?
If she is, they should already be fertilized.
She will carry them there until they hatch and release the fry.
 
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pombina

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This is what she looks like? I was lucky and got this while she was in the water so she is ok, moving about etc she just seems to want to be out of the water a lot. The other crabs have actually moved up and are sitting around her most of the time.
 

sharky

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all I can say is she is a cutie
.. I would posible place her in a small container ( big enough ) with one other crab??
 

arlyn

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I would not worry about it.
The fry are so tiny they aren't likely to survive, even provided you could find a small enough food source for them.

Whenever I've kept crabs, I always put aquarium drift wood in the tank with some sticking out above the water line and use an escape proof lid.
The little buggers are great at hiding and climbing, and are surprisingly fast.
 
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