Fish-Addict
01-25-2009, 4:58 AM
Could any of these fish be ok with thai red crabs or are they too slow and will get grabbed by them?:
Platies
Guppies
shrimp (amano, cherry, bamboo)
White clouds
dwarf puffer fish
hillstream loaches
Betta (I know probably not but ill ask any way :))
also what water conditions do thai crabs prefer?
mellowvision
01-25-2009, 11:46 AM
puffers eat crabs i think.
my acrbs hunted everything, but caught nothing.
Fish-Addict
01-25-2009, 12:03 PM
but is there a risk that they could catch something?
Cuvier
01-25-2009, 1:52 PM
also what water conditions do thai crabs prefer?
Brackish salinity with some way to periodically leave the water.
mellowvision
01-25-2009, 1:58 PM
my red claw crabs spent over half of their time out of the water, and in the case where they could dig a burrow, they did, and spent a lot of time there. it eventually escaped, climbing a hose out of the tank. you should consider a brackish tank with a shore line that rises at least 4" above the water line, with substrate that the crab can dig a burrow into. the bottom of their burrow should meet the water line, so that it has 1/4" of water in the bottom. this is their favorite condition, from what I have read and witnessed.
in terms of catching fish, mine only ever seemed to be able to catch slow movers, like otos and snails. my cherry barbs would even taunt the crabs... but the crabs never caught any of them.
a nice crab set up to start with would be crabs and amanos, or crabs and indian glass fish. both will do well in brackish water if slowly acclimated. also, keep in mind that most red claws are sold in fresh water, even though they're brackish, so you should acclimate them slowly too, raising the salinity from fresh to brackish over the course of a few weeks.