# My Red Clawed Crabs are in an abusive relationship.



## Fiddy (Dec 2, 2011)

Hi, this is actually my first post. I have 2 Red Clawed Crabs (male & female) in a 45 gal tank with other misc fish. My problem is that the male seems to have an extreme hatred for his "mate." They have been fine for months, but recently I started noticing the females limbs missing. First she was missing a leg, and I thought nothing of it. A few days later she only had 3 legs left! She has since grown the missing legs back, but now the little bastard male pulled off both her claws within the past few days. I honestly have no idea how she is going to eat now. I haven't actually seen them fight, but he is the only thing in that tank that could have done that to her. I just wanted to know if this is normal for him to be a jerk like that, or do I have to hire a Crayfish to rough him up a little bit? I am so close to giving my cat a nice snack. Btw, I am caring for them properly, I am sure they are male and female, they have access to land, PLENTY of food, water quality is good, etc.


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## Aquariuman (Nov 28, 2011)

What kind of fish do you have with the crabs?


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## Fiddy (Dec 2, 2011)

I have just regular community fish in the tank. Guppies, Neons, Tiger Barbs, Gouramis, Black Loaches, nothing big or aggressive enough to do anything to the female crab. I honestly think that this is a behavior problem. Originally I had bought 2 males from a petstore a long time ago, and they were both in a tank by themselves. Territory was already established. When I put them in my home tank they fought to the death. So a few months later I bought 2 more. This time a male and a female, and these came from a tank at a different petstore that had a lot of crabs in it. Again, the 2 males fought to the death, with the first male coming out on top. The 2nd batch were probably used to being around different crabs, and the initial male that I had bought the first time was not. What puzzles me is that he and the female were fine together before, and I had actually seen them eat together. He has only recently started attacking her. Maybe this is part of their mating cycle?


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## Aquariuman (Nov 28, 2011)

Well tiger barbs can be aggressive fin nippers when not in large enough groups. How many do you have? I could be wrong but I think it's your tiger barbs. Granted, I've never heard of them going after crabs or crayfish, so it could just be your other crab. Then again if you have too few tiger barbs, they could get aggressive. So, if you could tell me how many tiger barbs you have I'll research if there are any documented cases of tiger barbs attacking red clawed crabs.


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## Fiddy (Dec 2, 2011)

I have 5 barbs, 3 female 2 male. They only fight amongst themselves. I haven't seen them bother anything else in the tank. I forgot to mention before that my male crab is huge. He has to be almost 4 in. The female is maybe about 2 in. I have one of those large aquadome things I got from Crabs Habitat by Atlantis Underwater Islands I was stocking it with crickets, but I haven't been to the petstore in couple weeks. Maybe he is pissed off cause he don't have any crickets. lol


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## Aquariuman (Nov 28, 2011)

lol Yeah its probably just your other crab. I'd watch them and make sure or you can buy a little portable video camcorder and stand and tape them in the act. Then if it is the larger one, try separating them or feeding them very well. If you separate them I would move the larger male (If it is him picking on the smaller one) so he wouldn't be able to stake out a territory before the other one got big enough to go back. Make sense?, because it's kind of getting confusing to me.lol I better stop this post while everything is true.


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## jbrown5217 (Nov 9, 2011)

I don't know what would cause it, but you could always set up a webcam and have it record what is going on in the tank.

Most people have webcams and they are generally cheaper than cameras. Just make sure to record to an external HDD or a backup and make it a low quality video, just make sure you can still see what is going on.


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## Fiddy (Dec 2, 2011)

Sounds legit to me. I'll probably end up separating them, or buy 2-3 more crabs so he'll be overwhelmed. lol I cleaned the tank today, and rearranged everything. I added new things, so territory for the crabs will have to be reestablished. I somehow lost a Swordtail. I have no idea how that happened to her. I honestly don't remember her being in there before I cleaned, but I notice she isn't in there now. Guess I'll have to set the days without casualties while cleaning sign from 155 to 1.


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## Fiddy (Dec 2, 2011)

Update: He finally killed her. I saw him eating her corpse. It wasn't just her molted shell either bc it was dark, and I seen "matter" in it.  Very sad. I am going to take a picture of him when I find him, and post it on here so you guys can see him. I may have a world record, bc he is a huge crab. I might give him to a friend, or donate him to a petstore. If I do I'm gonna try Fiddler Crabs. Are they more docile?


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## Aquariuman (Nov 28, 2011)

Fiddy said:


> I might give him to a friend, or donate him to a petstore.


Are u really going to get rid of him? If so, and u don't have anywhere else to take him, I may be interested. I'll have to set up a tank, though. Just let me know!


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