I’ve been putting research into the natural life cycles of 'moon crabs'. I have just acquired a young pair. I am not absolutely positive of the species, but it is the genus Gecarcinus, most likely Gecarcinus quadratus.
They’ll be in a 40 gallon breeder. For now it’ll be a pretty standard moon crab setup, but will be modified to experiment with inducing breeding/egg release as I learn more.
I was looking for more information/testimonies regarding the captive breeding and rearing of these. One paper I found attempted to raise them from eggs (unsure if these were captive bred or wild caught), only one survived to megalopa and it died before becoming a juvenile. The methods used to raise them are not elaborated on.
There are a number of environmental factors I would need to recreate, I've been brainstorming how I could achieve it. Mimicking a rainy season with Asbolus beetles is easy enough, but I imagine it’s fairly different with these larger and smarter crabs. I’m unsure if the seasonal use of a fogger could be adequate, if I have no better ideas I will attempt this, open to suggestions!
The one I’m really lost on is recreating tides. In theory I’ve thought of some kind of timed water pump that adjusts the water levels, but I have absolutely no idea how I could accomplish this. I am also unsure if mimicking waves would be necessary.
Then there’s raising the zoea. My initial thought some kind of kreisel tank, there are some available on the market for raising jellyfish ephyrae. I need to do further research in sourcing adequately small plankton to feed zoea.
At some point they will need to surface and move to land. I am unsure how to enable this while still maintaining the appropriate environment for larvae. My thought is I could move them to a semi-terrestrial setup once they are megalopae (maybe using some sort of sifter that could catch the megalopae but not the zoea), since this seems to be when they start heading for shore? At the very least they are capable of self propulsion, so they wouldn’t need the kreisel afaik. I could just keep them in the semi aquatic tank and give them however much time they need to surface.
I eagerly welcome any advice! I’ve heard there is one instance of captive breeding and raising being achieved, but I cannot find the firsthand documentation of this.
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