community safe crabs?

[Friendly]

I'm gonna grab a 3 gallon long aquarium and make it a crab club/den/cave. can anyone advise what crabs will get along with each other for the most part?

 

I know hermits are a-holes, so likely won't mix much there, but the others should be relatively safe as their shells are their body, not 'optional' as it were.

[Tamberav]

Green porcelains like to live in groups!! Reef Cleaners has them. However my porcelain anemone crabs did not like each other so only 1 of those but he doesn't bother my green one.

 

My pom pom crab would attack things, even pistol shrimp but thats generally not normal. I am guessing multiple pom pom's would fight.

 

I see the emeralds all in one big tank at the LFS and they don't seem to be at war. I am sure if food ran out, that would be another story. 

[Humblefish]

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but any crabs kept in close confines (3 gallon tank) will likely turn on one another.

 

You could keep something cool looking like a Pom Pom Crab, Decorator Crab or Halloween Hermit. But I would house them singly and eventually all will outgrow the tank.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

Surprisingly, I have my pest tank set up, it’s a 7 and a half gallon tank, and I have not seen my crabs fight once yet. It may be bc I have one blue crab in there and he’s always buried into the sand bed, so he doesn’t really bug everyone else, and the one rock crab that I have is big, but scared of his own shadow, and then two mud crabs that may be a mated pair. I feel like a lot is just luck of the draw.

[Friendly]

 

57 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Surprisingly, I have my pest tank set up, it’s a 7 and a half gallon tank, and I have not seen my crabs fight once yet. It may be bc I have one blue crab in there and he’s always buried into the sand bed, so he doesn’t really bug everyone else, and the one rock crab that I have is big, but scared of his own shadow, and then two mud crabs that may be a mated pair. I feel like a lot is just luck of the draw. 

these rock and mud crabs you mention...are these the one's that grow out to be big, or just some names you've used for small'uns?

[billygoat]

8 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Green porcelains like to live in groups!! Reef Cleaners has them.

I actually have a few of these green porcelain crabs (Petrolisthes armatus), as well as a couple of other crabs that seem to be doing pretty well together. I started out with one porcelain to see how it would do, and ended up buying three more after confirming that they appear to like my system. I just added the newest trio two days ago, and so far they seem to be peaceful enough. There's been a bit of claw-waving but no battles yet. I also have a micro decorator crab and a handful of blue-leg hermits which all seem to get along well with the porcelain crabs, but I feel that in the confines of a 3 gallon tank things may be a little bit different... 🤔 Competition for space is likely to be a real issue.

[Tamberav]

In my 2.5g I have:

 

Polka dot hermit crab - active day and night but moreso night 

 

Electric blue hermit crab - active day and night but moreso night

 

Clown crab - mostly active at night...loves caves 

 

Green porcelain crab - active during day...loves overhangs to sit upside down under 

 

Porcelain anenome crab - active during day...loves to sit on nems and corals

 

Only loss so far was a snail for the hermit crab because I didn't add spare shells. Only lost the one snail though.

 

For the most part they like to hang out in different areas so it is working so far.

 

[Friendly]

keep in mind this is a 3 gallon long and low, so keep in mind it does have space. dimensions are 18.0″ x 5.5″ x 7.1″. 

[A.m.P]

Could always go with crabs that will never really see or interact with each other, like an anemone crab w/rock flower, or just a green/blue porcelain, micro-decorator + calcifying-algae, and an sps crab if you can get a colony of stylo/poci/birdsnest.

[antigonus]

Maybe a porcelain crab? I have one in a 32 gallon and it is always hiding, but they don't seem to be aggressive.

[mndfreeze]

pom poms can be housed in multiples.  They 'wrestle' and fight but generally only when one loses one or both of its nems and it will try to steal one from another one to split it.  

 

Anenome porcelains are territorial, sort of.  They tend to always want to stay a certain distance from each other but I've never seen them attack each other.  

 

Green porcelains will hang out in big ole groups.

 

Hermits vary from species to species,  

 

If you get the right species of SPS the acro crab could be cool.  I've been pondering getting one for my tank for a while now.