# Vampire crabs (Geosesarma sp.)



## Tuatara (Feb 1, 2009)

Anyone keep these? I have a four foot paludarium set up I built from scratch, thought I would share some pictures on how they are getting on and see if anyone else keeps them!

Geosesarma tiomanicum










The setup, I will get the time to upload a better and more up to date picture!


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## Bindimatt (Sep 7, 2016)

That looks great, I had a small group for several months in a more land orientated rain forest set up but who I left looking after my animals while I went away didn't keep them humid enough and I lost them all. I've just started setting up another tank and will be going the Paludarium route, have you got any build photos at all?


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## Tuatara (Feb 1, 2009)

They are great creatures, shame yours didnt work out but they are worth trying again with!

My tank is about 40/60 land/water and I regrettably didn't take any photos of the build, although I will take some updated photos of the setup and talk about how I set it up! 

I do have a huge 4ft x 4ft x 2ft Glass tank I am building at the moment which I am tempted to do a build thread with, its a bit of a monster!


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## Tuatara (Feb 1, 2009)

*Update.*

So I said I would do a few more updated pictures. Apologies for the quality of the crabs, they are very quick and don't pose for a photo very well!

Another close up of one of the four Geosesarma tiomanicum 










I also got given this little girl who is a Geosesarma dennerle. My plan is to set up a secondary tank and build up a group of this species too. But for the moment she is living quite happily with the G. tiomanicum










This is the tank at the moment, I have more bogwood soaking to add. I have a couple of Cherry shrimp (Neocaridina davidi var.) in the water, I am hoping that given there is enough cover between all the plants and bog wood they wont become a snack for the crabs!










From the top:










The build as you can see is effectively a sheet of glass separating water from land. Land area has a load of clay balls in, soil/moss mix and plenty of live plants, including bromeliads, spider plants, devils ivy, creeping fig. Lots of springtails in here which keep it clean and give the crabs something to chew on too. 

The water area has sprigs of devils ivy, java fern and java moss. to allow the crabs to get in and out of the water, curved pieces of bog wood have been used.

I have a Dennerle Nano Corner Filter 10-40L which is ideal for shrimp. it has a spray bar that is directional and I am very impressed with the power of it, the flow is adjustable too which is handy. The water area equates to 15L so a small area.

Lighting wise, I have a Arcadia jungle dawn 22w which is doing great.

I'm surprised more people don't keep these, they're slowly becoming a solid favorite of mine. :no1:


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## DaveInFlames (Jan 22, 2010)

You put my little setup to shame but here it is


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## DaveInFlames (Jan 22, 2010)

has 2 current G.Bicolor residents in here


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## TaylorMario (May 20, 2018)

*SO frigging PISSED*

My tank setup currently has:
-reptile soil
-sand
-Frog Moss, Entodon moss, Short Capsule moss and a few others. 
-Drift wood that I found and washed
-The water dish is big and takes up 15% of the entire tank and only has rain water in it.
-The hygrometer usually reads about 40-50 humidty which I cant keep high for some reason
-Temp of tank is 60F to 70 (should try to get it to 80 i think)
-was feeding them crickets but then noticed a cricket eating one of my dead crabs so I got rid of crickets and now feed them Hermit Crab food by Zoo Med which is what big als recommended. I have blood worms but I heard they can be filled with parasites (sounds risky) and i'm not sure how you feed them to a crab.
-I dont have a lid to my terrarium so maybe the humidity is escaping but i cant have a lid in order to keep my lights shining into the tank and providing heat
-lights are: 25W repti Basking spot light which i never turn off since my basement can get cold and a florescent for the plants which is on a timer. 



So I have had nothing but trouble with Vampire crabs and Red-devils. I purchased them at Big Al's in Ontario Canada who claims they are privately bred. I have lost about 15 crabs over the course of 4 months. I started out with 8 and they were doing pretty good at first and then started to die off one by one every few days. I was so mad as they cost $12 a piece and so I went back and told them what had happened. They told me to use Prime in the water dish so that it detoxifies the ammonium and nitrites. Then I purchased one individual so that I wouldn't have mass casualties again because I hate killing them. He lived about 5 days before he died. I went back to them and they said to try it again but increase the humidity of the tank. I spray my tank with rain water a lot now and he still died and some of the pellets I was feeding him even turned white with fuzz as maybe it was so humid that mold was growing. I don't know what to do as I really want to keep vampire crabs even if I cant keep them with the red devils. They clearly are dying by themselves and in the group so It must be something to do with my setup. What am I doing wrong? everything? I would add an image but when I hit add image it asks me to enter the URL for my image and its not on the internet so doesn't work. 

Thanks, for any advice you can share


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## DivineLight (Jul 23, 2018)

Nice to see I'm not the only one here. How common are crabs as pets in the UK or US?


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