Do horseshoe crabs taste good?

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Ah. I like my crab a lot! I dont feed her anything specific, she eats left overs! Should I feed her certain stuff?

Honestly, I’m not sure - one of the groups listed what specific feed they were using, but it’s a commercial feed from a company (Skretting) in Utah that doesn’t list their ingredients. From what I’ve been able to find, though, it seems to just be a relatively standard, high quality aquaculture feed (good protein and fat contents, a wide range of food items in it to ensure a good spectrum nutritionally, etc.), so I’d assume pretty much any good feed (like LRS, Hikari Mega Marine, or Rod’s, for frozen examples; TDO Chromaboost & NLS Marine or Otohime & NLS Marine for pellet examples) should work.

 

[Pickle_soup]

Put some Sweet Baby Ray's: Sweet and Spicy on it, and I am certain it will taste amazing.

 

[littlefoxx]

Honestly, I’m not sure - one of the groups listed what specific feed they were using, but it’s a commercial feed from a company (Skretting) in Utah that doesn’t list their ingredients. From what I’ve been able to find, though, it seems to just be a relatively standard, high quality aquaculture feed (good protein and fat contents, a wide range of food items in it to ensure a good spectrum nutritionally, etc.), so I’d assume pretty much any good feed (like LRS, Hikari Mega Marine, or Rod’s, for frozen examples; TDO Chromaboost & NLS Marine or Otohime & NLS Marine for pellet examples) should work.

Oh good I feed my fish a combo of those!

 

[Stomatopods17]

How are these guys hard to care for?? (Not arguing just genuinely curious seems how mine has thrived in my tank!) I did some basic research on them when I first saw mine in the tank. She seems very solid to me, she eats a bunch of frozen food and survived my big tank crash! Really the only thing I came across is they are hard to get to eat frozen food?

Diet, size, special needs, etc.

They get pretty massive, as national aquarium pointed out they keep them in more cold water with lower salinity, and they spend a lot of time foraging what's in the sand constantly, which depletes really fast. While it may seem like they eat whatever meat falls to the bottom, they're not actually fully satisfying their needs from that, it was once thought they exclusively fed on worms and living fauna in the sand but I think national aquarium and some research facilities disproved that.

They're basically the same issue as sandsifting starfish where they just cannot get enough even with the supplemental feeding since they deplete it so fast especially as they grow.

In theory you might be able to keep them with a dedicated design for them, in the parameters that anything else wouldn't thrive well in, but the diet is still something everyone is figuring out. Even the labs trying to aquaculture them haven't been successful with their eggs (horseshoe crabs are usually found on beaches for this) and the one site I found on them come up with some kind of in-house food with gelatin to try and give them everything.

Horseshoe Crab Aquaculture as a Sustainable Endotoxin Testing Source

Horseshoe crab (HSC) hemolymph is the source of Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), a critical component in sterility testing that ensures drug and medical device safety for millions of patients every year. Wild HSC populations have been declining as a result of its use as whelk and eel bait...

www.frontiersin.org

Most of the time when you hear of horseshoe crab successes within the hobby, its someone with a really large well established setup going on a couple years or they speak too soon at the 1 or 2 year mark when they could live 20+ years. Reminds me of crinoids where you hear about an individual who got a system that works for them but the other 99% don't find success or hit mysterious roadblocks trying to replicate that individual.

They're really cool animals and the day we crack the code on them I'd love to try and find success with them but as is rn, they need really big tanks, really deep sandbed, and food seems to still be a guessing game, its easy to at least replicate the water parameters they're caught in.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Even the labs trying to aquaculture them haven't been successful with their eggs (horseshoe crabs are usually found on beaches for this) and the one site I found on them come up with some kind of in-house food with gelatin to try and give them everything.

The gelatin was to keep the food (the Skretting aquaculture feed I mentioned) stable in the water. Some of them have been successful with the larval rearing, and more research has been/is being done to make egg production in captivity more efficient (to the point where it is seen as a viable method of collecting the blood needed):

https://horseshoecrab.org/research/sites/default/files/DONE%20Schreibman%20and%20Zarnoch.pdf

FA254/FA254: Candidate Species for Florida Aquaculture: American Horseshoe Crab Limulus polyphemus

The American horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, is a member of the phylum Arthropoda, subphylum Chelicerata, and class Merostomata. Although there are four horseshoe crab species worldwide, the American horseshoe crab is primarily found in the Atlantic Ocean along the East Coast of North...

edis.ifas.ufl.edu

Evaluation of Indoor and Outdoor Aquaculture Systems as Alternatives to Harvesting Hemolymph From Random Wild Capture of Horseshoe Crabs

This study evaluated two approaches to the aquaculture of Limulus polyphemus with the ultimate goal of harvesting Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) at an industrial scale. To monitor Horseshoe crabs (HSCs), a combination of physical, biochemical and cellular components were examined for HSC cohorts...

www.frontiersin.org

In theory you might be able to keep them with a dedicated design for them, in the parameters that anything else wouldn't thrive well in, but the diet is still something everyone is figuring out.

With regards to the parameters (in case the studies already listed aren't proof enough that these things are basically bullet proof):

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/1543539

Also, the Skretting feed used in one of the studies:

Classic Brood - Skretting

Specifically made for Broodstock

www.skretting.com

 

[littlefoxx]

Diet, size, special needs, etc.

They get pretty massive, as national aquarium pointed out they keep them in more cold water with lower salinity, and they spend a lot of time foraging what's in the sand constantly, which depletes really fast. While it may seem like they eat whatever meat falls to the bottom, they're not actually fully satisfying their needs from that, it was once thought they exclusively fed on worms and living fauna in the sand but I think national aquarium and some research facilities disproved that.

They're basically the same issue as sandsifting starfish where they just cannot get enough even with the supplemental feeding since they deplete it so fast especially as they grow.

In theory you might be able to keep them with a dedicated design for them, in the parameters that anything else wouldn't thrive well in, but the diet is still something everyone is figuring out. Even the labs trying to aquaculture them haven't been successful with their eggs (horseshoe crabs are usually found on beaches for this) and the one site I found on them come up with some kind of in-house food with gelatin to try and give them everything.

Horseshoe Crab Aquaculture as a Sustainable Endotoxin Testing Source

Horseshoe crab (HSC) hemolymph is the source of Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), a critical component in sterility testing that ensures drug and medical device safety for millions of patients every year. Wild HSC populations have been declining as a result of its use as whelk and eel bait...

www.frontiersin.org

Most of the time when you hear of horseshoe crab successes within the hobby, its someone with a really large well established setup going on a couple years or they speak too soon at the 1 or 2 year mark when they could live 20+ years. Reminds me of crinoids where you hear about an individual who got a system that works for them but the other 99% don't find success or hit mysterious roadblocks trying to replicate that individual.

They're really cool animals and the day we crack the code on them I'd love to try and find success with them but as is rn, they need really big tanks, really deep sandbed, and food seems to still be a guessing game, its easy to at least replicate the water parameters they're caught in.

Ah I will keep an eye on her! When she gets too big I will give her to my local aquarium for her to be in their massive tanks I think

 

[mijan]

Ah I will keep an eye on her! When she gets too big I will give her to my local aquarium for her to be in their massive tanks I think

When its too big you're just going to give it away? I think you're missing the gist of this thread. When the time comes you need to be melting some butter. LOL

 

[littlefoxx]

When its too big you're just going to give it away? I think you're missing the gist of this thread. When the time comes you need to be melting some butter. LOL

Theres no way I could eat her after raising her in my tank!! Lol

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Diet, size, special needs, etc.

They get pretty massive, as national aquarium pointed out they keep them in more cold water with lower salinity, and they spend a lot of time foraging what's in the sand constantly, which depletes really fast. While it may seem like they eat whatever meat falls to the bottom, they're not actually fully satisfying their needs from that, it was once thought they exclusively fed on worms and living fauna in the sand but I think national aquarium and some research facilities disproved that.

They're basically the same issue as sandsifting starfish where they just cannot get enough even with the supplemental feeding since they deplete it so fast especially as they grow.

In theory you might be able to keep them with a dedicated design for them, in the parameters that anything else wouldn't thrive well in, but the diet is still something everyone is figuring out. Even the labs trying to aquaculture them haven't been successful with their eggs (horseshoe crabs are usually found on beaches for this) and the one site I found on them come up with some kind of in-house food with gelatin to try and give them everything.

Horseshoe Crab Aquaculture as a Sustainable Endotoxin Testing Source

Horseshoe crab (HSC) hemolymph is the source of Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), a critical component in sterility testing that ensures drug and medical device safety for millions of patients every year. Wild HSC populations have been declining as a result of its use as whelk and eel bait...

www.frontiersin.org

Most of the time when you hear of horseshoe crab successes within the hobby, its someone with a really large well established setup going on a couple years or they speak too soon at the 1 or 2 year mark when they could live 20+ years. Reminds me of crinoids where you hear about an individual who got a system that works for them but the other 99% don't find success or hit mysterious roadblocks trying to replicate that individual.

They're really cool animals and the day we crack the code on them I'd love to try and find success with them but as is rn, they need really big tanks, really deep sandbed, and food seems to still be a guessing game, its easy to at least replicate the water parameters they're caught in.

Diet high in protein and fats, with half moisture coagulated with gelatin.... I find this diet strangely similar to a powdered shark feed I saw at one point which is turned into a jelly via the addition of water, then given to bamboo sharks. My guess would be that this is just essentially blending a day's forage for a crab into a block they could eat all at once, and it doesn't actually seem to be a lot of food(3% weight/day, which is 135g daily for a 4.5kg horseshoe).

Perhaps you want to feed these guys like a predator? They will readily scavenge and hunt in the wild and I'd think they wouldn't get as much forage in the sand bed of a controlled setting like a reef tank, and this supplements their calories. Bonus points on making these guys fertilizer trucks for coral. I'm not an expert on industrial trout feed but maybe it can be replicated by feeding regularly with whole fish and inverts?

In my opinion, the paper doesn't make these guys' care sound hard. No weight loss on average and 100% survival rate for a whole year after being juiced regularly and reproducing doesn't raise any red flags for me at all.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Ah I will keep an eye on her! When she gets too big I will give her to my local aquarium for her to be in their massive tanks I think

That's if they want her! If not, there's always the wok...