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Hi, I have a moon crab. (aka rainbow crab I believe) I set him up a 20G tank with a 6" high glass wall across the middle. I put water on one side and sand on the other etc. I notice that water keeps appearing on the sand side, where he hangs out. It is like he is moving a tablespoon of water a day. I am not sure what is going on... if he is moving the water, or I have some kind of uphill water leak. I've put him into a temporary 10G tank with 4" of water and a big piece of lava rock to climb on until I redo his 20G.

Lessons learned:

- sand is a mess with a crab. Gets all over his body when he is wet, and when he goes to the water it floats on the surface--forever.

- a tank with a proper closed lid, that is not filled to the top with water will fog up

If the sand is slightly damp, then it won't stick to the crab as much. Dry sand just gets everywhere (like it does in your bathing suit) and was probably making the crab a bit uncomfortable (like you would be with sand in your bathing suit). The crab may have been bringing water over specifically to combat the dry sand problem. Crabs like to burrow, and it's very difficult to do that in dry sand as well.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

http://davec.tabbweb.com/images/crab.png

Oh look, he moulted. Boy is the shell that comes off ever complete. It's like a whole other crab.

Last edited by pizpot at 05-Nov-2005 18:45

How large is it?

His head is about 2" inches wide. After he was done moulting, he left 2 parts. One was the top of his shell. That is how he came out. The second part is everything else. He just came out the top like a yoga master or something. Everything is there on the old shell... eyes, claws, mouth claws. It is amazing. My son took it for show and tell today. He will have to convince them that it is not a dead crab I bet.