pregnant micro crab

They have a larval stage and require phytoplankton to survive. If you have a tank full of green water, with only a sponge filter, you can transfer the pregger mommy there and hope for the best. So far no one has been able to rear them successfully.

>.> looks like im going to try to be famous... can i feed them infusoria via lettuce and water?

you can try. i think they need free-floating phytoplankton (green water would work) because they're free floating zoe

Hi there, I've read somewhere that the micro crab larvae are carnivorous from the very start! I also have a pregnant female who has just been transferred to her own tank. This tank has at least 5 kinds of phytoplankton as well as a healthy population of tiny copepods (-1mm) as well as a variety of other critters too small to see clearly. Apparently it's quite hard just getting the eggs to hatch but if I'm lucky enough I will be watching my tank very closely with all kinds of magnifying devices!! Good luck everyone.

So the eggs do hatch but the offsprings just fail to live through larval stage due to food selection?

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I don't think anyone actually knows why they die, honestly. It seems like the best anyone has had is 3-4 days and then they're all dead. Food, salinity, temperature, other water parameters, lack of a symbiotic species present in the wild, who knows? If I can ever get my crabs to actually HATCH their eggs then I plan to do some post mortems on the zoeas that will inevitably die on me. I should be able to see whether they're eating or not, at the very least.

I would think that by now someone would get these going but I have not heard of anyone successfully doing so.

Good luck. I good someone figures out how to keep them alive.