Fiddler crab mail order?

[Rushi]

Anyone know where you can mail order feeder crabs for a reasonable price? I have heard a couple people talk about getting them from bait shops for $5 for 250 of em. Anyone know a cheap place?

 

[bmatson]

I got mine on the aquaculturestore.com. They are not as cheap as $5 for 250 but they are pretty good.
Ben

 

[Rushi]

yeah saw that site $15 for 10 is ok but no where near $5 for 250, lol. I was hoping to find a place for when they grow a bit to get them in mass for a decent price. 10 would be a couple day's food. Might just have to take a trip to the shore. Any excuse for a beach vacation.

 

[Nancy]

The quality and reliability of the animals from the Aquaculture Store has been quite good and our cephs have thrived on them. You might ask whether there's a price break if you order quantity.

Nancy

 

[Rushi]

I might have to do that. in the mean time, I recieved the eggs and 4 have already hatched! I did not realize how small these guys really are. Feeding pods from my reef tank for now.

 

[corw314]

I had a great experience with ordering from them when my local sources ran out! Would love to see pics of the babies!!!!

 

[ant]

Would it even be possible to have 250 for 5$???

 

[Rushi]

donno, that is what I read on a couple posts on reef central in the ceph area of the forums. But even 100 for $20 would be dirt cheap comparatively. I did order some mysid shrimp from that site though. I as hoping the grass shrimp would be small enough, but I did not expect the tiny tiny ize of the new hatchlings.

 

[Paradox]

Grass shrimp are pretty big and can be used to feed adult bandensis.
Quatities of live food at those prices can only be found at bait shops. i often find it to be true that a commodity thats snatches a a large price in one hobby is sold for much less in others. Fiddler crabs are an example. Id love to know of a shop that ships if you ever find one. My local bait shop carries grass shrimp, but they are easily 2-4 inches. I cant find fiddlers locally, since I dont think they are native here.

Bandensis wont go for a crab until its at least 1.5-2 months old or so. Ill throw small shore crabs in that are maybe a cm or less and the cuttles will be interested, but afraid of it.

It looks like youre realising the biggest challenge in keeping an army of cuttles. Thats keeping them fed! While trying to save yourself some $$$. With 10 cuttles eating marine shrimp, you can probably stretch out an order of 250 marine shrimp to two weeks max. Thats feeding once a day. At 65$ per 250 order, you can do the math...

My 7 month old bandensis might be to small still for grass shrimp, but I had an idea Id like to try out, since I do notice I can get them to eat freshly (Within the day) killed shrimp. This may sound a little gross, but I was going to try cutting a grass shrimp in half while alive and immediately throwing it in the cuttle tank. I suspect they will eat it as it flows through the water current. This would save me a lot of $$$ since grass shrimp at my local bait store is 3 dollars a 1/2 lb! Ill report my results soon.

Another member has pointed me to this artical Advanced Aquarist

comparing fresh and marine inverts in regards to nutrion. It looks as if theres not too much nutritional difference between the two. Ive contemplated changing to freshwater ghost shrimps as a main diet because they are a little cheaper.

Although I think its a good idea to feed a ceph marine food only, I dont know if its absolutely necessary. Although Ive read that it may make your cephs a little more lethargic. Ive kept octopus for its full life on fiddler crabs. And many people use salt water mollies, which although live in salt water, Im sure the nutritional value is the same as the freshwater counterpart. Im sure a good mixture between the two is the best econimical and healthy choice.

 

[Rushi]

Frozen seems like it would be the best option if the cuttle will accept it. Especially for us land locked folks. I have weaned some real picky critters onto frozen, including lion fish, eels, etc. I find that either a feeding stick or my hands (yes I fed a lion by hand for years!) tend to really help. I hand feed my eel every couple days. Seeing as how cuttlefish are intelligent creatures it would seem that they could pick up on this as well. They are also ambush predators just like the lion fish and hunt in a very similar manner.

 

[Opcn]

What you feed the mollies has a big effect, and rearing them in salt water will change the mineral content of the fish, IMO if you are going to breed mollies do it in light brackish and aclimate the feders at least two weeks in advance, less if they are fry.

How about worms? not as a main staple but to help keep them from eating each other, blood worms for small cuddles and night crawlers for bigger ones, they would have to be gut loaded but that wouldnt be to hard, especially with larger ones, infact I suppose you could inject cyclpeeze or something similar into them with little effort,