Horseshoe Crabs

[SaltyTX]

Has anyone kept one of these?

If so, what is the expected lifespan and acceptable tank size to keep it for its 'natural' lifespan?

Do they need something special to live/eat?

I know in the wild they get pretty big...

For those worried, I am not putting one in my tank 26g, but I will have a much larger tank in about a year so I am doing a little planning.


Thanks

[reeferman00]

i have 2 in my 75gal. they should have a lot more room then this though.
they just scavenge the bottom for food but they get annoying sometimes and nock over corals.
sometimes they even swim around with my fish.

[spamreefnew]

i find that they dont last more than a year in a reef tank ,,some condition is wrong in our reefs for them

[BLKTANG]

They will bulldose your LR

[Aquarist007]

IMO horseshoe crabs should not be kept in a reef tank. They live under the top layers of the sand, eat everything that is living and functional there and then starve to death after they have consumed everything.
they can also grow quite rapidly to a foot(but usually starve by that time)

[returnofsid]

I agree with the Capn. Horseshoe crabs fall into the same category as Sand Dollars. They need DEEP sand beds to provide them with enough food to forage. Several trustworthy articles recommend 3 cubic YARDS of sand per crab.

Another downside of them is that they'll quickly strip your sand bed of anything living, leaving it pretty much sterile. There goes all the beneficial critters that we want.

[xJake]

We keep large ones in the lab in our 1500-gallon touch tank. They're definitely not suited for most reef aquariums, and if you have an acrylic tank they will scratch the interior walls quite a bit.

As for feeding, we feed them pieces of fish, shrimp, squid, silversides, etc. We've had the same ones for almost a decade now, and they don't seem to be showing any signs of ill health. They have very primitive eyes that are really more for just detecting light. So, in order to ensure they get fed, you need to actually pick them up, flip them over, and physically put food into their mouth (which looks like 2 grinding stones sliding across each other).

After being picked up and then set down, they will try to dart away and can stir up the sand quite a bit. To get them to calm down you can just gently hold them down in the sand until they burrow themselves into a hole and stop moving.

As others have said, they will eat all of the organisms living in your sand bed, so they're a bit counter-intuitive as a member of a clean-up crew. The amount of sand isn't really as important as simply having space to move around and forage. As long as they have a good 2-3" to burrow themselves in then they do just fine.

The rock work in a typical reef tank doesn't leave any room for a horseshoe crab to properly move around and forage. In the wild, they basically live in the "desert" areas of the ocean where there's almost no rock and virtually endless amounts of sand in which they can dig and forage for food.

[ludnix]

Thanks for sharing that xJake, I've never before heard of anyone successfully keeping a horseshoe crab so it's interesting to see how it can be done.

[xJake]

Here is a good article if anyone is interested:
http://www.nmfs.vt.edu/HSCwebsite/Pr...0Animal%20.pdf

[reeferstace]

Originally posted by ludnix
Thanks for sharing that xJake, I've never before heard of anyone successfully keeping a horseshoe crab so it's interesting to see how it can be done.

Remember that success was in a 1500g system.

[SaltyTX]

Hopefully my much larger tank will be well in excess of 500g...looking towards 900ish.

We'll see though......not sure I want to commit that kind of money yet.

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by reeferstace
Remember that success was in a 1500g system.

right--bold that
I believe the original poster is dealing with 29 gals--just a few gals short

[SaltyTX]

Originally posted by capn_hylinur
right--bold that
I believe the original poster is dealing with 29 gals--just a few gals short

Not to be a dick, but please read my original post.......

[NirvanaFan]

How often do you feed them Jake?

[xJake]

Originally posted by NirvanaFan
How often do you feed them Jake?

They usually get fed at least once a day, sometimes twice depending on how much food they take per feeding. It's a bit hard to coordinate because they tend to be more nocturnal, so getting them to accept food during the day takes a bit of coercion.