im keeping sand crabs in a 10 g tank with about 8 gallons of water.
5 gallons of water started from their natural habitat and 3 synthetic.
SG: 1.019
Nitrates:20
water temp 69-76*F
Feeding my sand crabs live and preserved phyto (didnt react at all to zoo plankton)
Heavy flow and tons of bubbles are what ive found to provide the perfect enviro.
They molt a lot and have grown up quite a bit.
sand is from their natural enviro. (tons of wierd creatures have been emerging)





There are also 4 margarita snails and some other wierd snail.
I plan to add more creatures if all keeps going so well

From where are you collecting? I used to HATE sand crabs when I lived in San Diego, but they look pretty cool in your setup.

you can get those at most so cal beaches, but they migrate up and down the coast; i used them as live bait when surf fishing. i think technically you need a fishing license to harvest them, but i see kids grabbing them from the sand all the time.

my grandma used to call them puerquitos, when i went to the beach with her. Translate to little pigs in english.

glad they are eating and molting for you

for just a suggestion add some other sandsifters and a small goby.

still a cool tank

I have a fishing lisence. and my friend and co-worker has a professional collectors lisence because he is a marine biologist studying the invasion of jellyfish brought here in ships ballasts so he can collect most stuff. So I plan to go snorkleing around the piers in san luis obispo with him to collect some macro and some neater compatable creatures. ill be upset if they eat my sand crabs

I also need to get a lot more sand.

a catalina goby would be pretty cool but I only want to add things I can collect for now

I brought home 3 really really awesome bright yellow with black dwarf hermit crabs i found scurrying along the sand and they went DIRECTLY for the sand crabs and started a massacre so I had to take them back

Nice biotope! I saw my first sand/mole crabs when I was in India. It was funny to see them try and burrow backwards.

You ever come to Monterey Bay?

I went to the monterey bay aquarium last year. its pretty cool. A lot of the beautiful cold water species photo galleries I see online are of the monterey bay area. are there some nice collection spots there that u know of? (ones that I won't get arrested at would be nice...)

Fishing for kids is free for 16 and under. I find quite a few hermits on the rocks where I am. They hermits I found are they algae eating kind I think (?) they look like blue leg hermits and red leg hermits. Of the colors of hermits on the rocks it ranges from red-white and other colors.

Awww...I like them! We called them sand fleas in Florida. My sister and I used to love catching them and letting them "dig" in our hands before we let them go. They're cute little critters.

Updates? I collected some coldwater snails that look like conchs if you are interested.

They are probably whelk snails. Olive green mini conches if i remember correctly.

Cool, I love stuff like that. Does your friend by any chance teach at a public college in the area. As a person from S. Cal. I appreciate the dynamic marine biology, I worked at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center for 8 years as a volunteer and loved every minute of it. Please post more pics.

I thought those are called sea cicadas. They are sure good eatin

I live right near the beach in naples florida and they are everywhere. Anybody had success with them in reef tanks. Seems that they would be a good sand sifter.

I saw a program on the food network one time and they were eating a similar species from the orient. That was the first time I heard of that!

I keep them in my reef but it seems they are a delicacy for my strawberry crab!!