sargassum crab

Marc G-L

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Picked up some sargassum at the beach today and put it in a container of sea water. I found an orange sargassum crab which will became a tasty treat instead of a DT killer when it grows. Also found the enclosed photos of a small whitish crab, a miniature sea slug half white half black and what I believe is an incredibly fast isopod ( definitly several segmented plated) it was a mottled paternity of black and white spots.

Do any of these deserve a spot in my DT or refugium?

crab 3.jpg crab2.jpg crab 1.jpg
 

kingranch2003

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Picked up some sargassum at the beach today and put it in a container of sea water. I found an orange sargassum crab which will became a tasty treat instead of a DT killer when it grows. Also found the enclosed photos of a small whitish crab, a miniature sea slug half white half black and what I believe is an incredibly fast isopod ( definitly several segmented plated) it was a mottled paternity of black and white spots.

Do any of these deserve a spot in my DT or refugium?

crab 3.jpg crab2.jpg crab 1.jpg
I could be wrong, but it appears to be a baby blue crab. It may appear brighter from being in the sea weed.
 

Louis Z

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The sargasso crabs are as fierce as a blue crab . Anything it catches it will eat it . Put a male with a female and then she ate him. I fed them a lot , always voracious , could not put my hand in the tank without it snapping . They grow fast . It’s only a one tank inhabitant unless you find a fish that is large enough to eat so that it hides .

The sea slug eats the sargasso . I don’t know if it only eats sargasso . I would assume it does . You can see the sargasso through the semi-translucent body . Do you have any green hair algae you can try it on as an experiment . Without a constant supply of sargasso , I believe it will starve.

The small crab could also be a sargasso crab it has that tan mark on its dorsal carapace . It’s not a blue crab . Still hard to identify Without seeing the last pair of appendages . Sargasso crabs are like blue crabs as they are swimming crabs and they have flat paddle like last appendage.
 

kingranch2003

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The sargasso crabs are as fierce as a blue crab . Anything it catches it will eat it . Put a male with a female and then she ate him. I fed them a lot , always voracious , could not put my hand in the tank without it snapping . They grow fast . It’s only a one tank inhabitant unless you find a fish that is large enough to eat so that it hides .

The sea slug eats the sargasso . I don’t know if it only eats sargasso . I would assume it does . You can see the sargasso through the semi-translucent body . Do you have any green hair algae you can try it on as an experiment . Without a constant supply of sargasso , I believe it will starve.

The small crab could also be a sargasso crab it has that tan mark on its dorsal carapace . It’s not a blue crab . Still hard to identify Without seeing the last pair of appendages . Sargasso crabs are like blue crabs as they are swimming crabs and they have flat paddle like last appendage.
Yep I agree with your saying this is probably a sargassum crab. Similar looking to a blue crab in body and claw structure.
 

Louis Z

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What to look for in sargasso is the sargasso frog fish . They can be small to softball size . The small one ONLY eat LiVE food . Grass Shrimps and shore minnows /mosquito fish/ mollies . If you don’t have a large bank of live food, success will be limited . I would say catch small prey with a net . As for the adults , the one I had caught ate defrosted silversides . I lost him after a year .

Another fish to look for is the sargasso file fish. I looked for one but never found it .

The other thing that I liked were all the sargasso shrimps . They are small , I wish I had separated them from the crabs . I had put them in all one tank . The crabs ate them
 

Louis Z

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I have a blue crabs , one 6inches wide from point to point . And smaller ones, one is the size of a dime and the other a quarter . They are grayish in color . This male blue lives in a 20gal with a rock that the smaller crabs hide in .
 

Louis Z

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I am hoping we get some of the drifting sargasso, I want to go and collect some frogfish . I plan on netting shore ghost shrimp to feed them .
 

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