Amarinus Lacustris

[Rare Aqua]

Hi,

I am I keeper and breeder of Amarinus Lucustris, please feel free to ask questions below,

[waffle]

Exciting!

I have a few Qs, and if you have the time/inclination it would be really cool  to have a care guide for them ?

1. Do they breed in freshwater without a floating larval stage?

2. Where/how did you find them??

3. Do they need any special water parameters for a) general living or b) breeding?

[Rare Aqua]

Hello Waffle,

Thanks for all the Questions, Firstly they DO NOT have a larval stage at any point of their life cycle, once females are berried they take between 3-5 weeks until the baby crabs hatch and are released, they are fully formed miniature adult crabs (about 1mm), I collected them with a freshwater ecologist in a stream in Melbourne (I will not be specific as I do not want this area to be over harvested) I collected only 10 individuals (2 males 8 females), as far as water parameters go they are reasonable hardy and accept a wide ranges of conditions ( they have to be expendable as they are an estuarine species, where the pH and salinity changes extremely quickly), mine are kept at a pH of 7-7.5, with water changes done weekly of 25%, the tank has sponge filters (I use sponge filters as they are completely shrimp and crab safe, compared to internal motorised sponge filters and hang on the back filters), they easily breed in the same environment that they are kept in, from what I have witness like shrimp they can only breed when a female sheds her shell, there should be an extremely high ratio of females to males as males will continually harass female crabs (that have just shedded) other wise the males can kill females, other wise males and females get on perfectly fine, the tank (cold water) has a large amount of native fissidens, driftwood, sand substrate and porous rocks, baby crabs should be fine if kept in the colony environment however as they need to compete with food with adult crabs you may only get 50% survival rate to adulthood, I overcome this issue by housing females (that are berried) in my 5 segmented tank this mean when the female releases the babies I simply take the female out and put back into the main crab tank, the babies are then grown on until the are about .5cm and added to the main colony tank, I keep mine in a species only aquarium, I have some with cherries and the crabs are quite timid of the shrimp even the HUGE 2cm males XD, I did have Amarinus Laevis however I did find the quite regularly predated on my shrimp , and also because of they complicated life cycle,

all in all, easy to care for, easy to feed, just keep with non aggressive fish (they can be acclimatised to tropical), fully formed babies, extremely shrimp safe.

Regards,

Rare Aqua

[jayc]

This is good info on a species that isn't very common yet.

How about writing that article on the Amarinus Lacustris?

Water parameters, preferred foods, colours, breeding, etc.

And of course pictures, lots of pictures!

[Rare Aqua]

Hi Jayc,

isn't this an article?, also ill add photos soon just have to take several and download them to my computer, also I think ive covered most info but ill happily answer them in more detail (List your questions you want me to expand on) 

[jayc]

32 minutes ago, Rare Aqua said:

also ill add photos soon just have to take several and download

Have a look at these articles .... https://skfaquatics.com/forum/articles/crabs/

You can use one as a template for the Amarinus Lacustris.

Please start it as a new topic so I can convert it into an article.

[Rare Aqua]

Hopefully I have done it this time

[jayc]

Well done!

I edited it to add a preview picture.

[Rare Aqua]

cool, hopefully this can help a lot of people with some basic understandings of them

[jayc]

1 hour ago, Rare Aqua said:

hopefully this can help a lot of people

YEAH! Crabs are still relatively uncommon in the hobby. Hopefully it changes.

[Rare Aqua]

Yeah, I just don't want the species to be targeted and commercialized from wild populations, when I collected mine I only took a relatively small group and worked from there to build up a larger colony, if the species can be bred in captivity it would be much better, as we have seen some fish species are rare in the wild but extremely common in the fish trade due to unrestricted collecting, anyway they would be amazing to introduce to the fish world as the are so perfect for almost any tank

[Linden]

I have wanted to try breeding Amarinus Lacustrus for years. Great to hear it sounds easier then my time breeding Amarinus Laevis. I'd love to start a breeding colony of Lacustrus.