drumbum540

Hi, I have discovered a little critter that is really quite fascinating to me, they are called either sand fleas or mole crabs. They are those little grey bug looking things that make bubbles when the waves go out at the beach. I have always like catching them and putting them in a container and watching them. is there any way that I could put them in my saltwater fish tank? If so I would really like to breed them. does anybody have any info on breeding or any experience with keeping them?
Thank you very much
-drumbum540

sirdarksol

I would be very careful and quarantine them for a long time. Perhaps even set up a mole-crab-only tank, breed them, and only introduce the captive-bred children to other tanks. This would minimize the chance of you introducing some horrible disease into an established tank.
They don't seem harmful, though. They're plankton eaters (though you don't want to keep jellies with them, as they seem to eat jelly tentacles)

King_Snuggles

I would go with a sand flee only tank like sirdarksol sugested for a while at least. do they need to be on the land at all in that case you would need a tarriarum? spelling?
Neet thought though.

Shawnie

B+ on spelling chris... tarrarium

Shawnie

hahaa opps C+ for me...terrarium

King_Snuggles

nice

sirdarksol

Hehe. That's why I love Firefox. It tells me when I'm mis-spelling something.

By the way, I forgot to say that they're cool little critters, and since they filter the water, they might even be beneficial to a tank.

drumbum540

Okay, thank you very much! I appreciate the help, I do still have one question, since they are plankton eaters could they eat pods instead? or maybe even brine shrimp? I read that the orange stuff inside them is eggs. I never knew that. and usually when you crush one it looks really orange. so if all that is eggs they probably reproduce a good amount of babies right? I have not found any record of anybody keeping them in an aquarium yet. and yes I also love Firefox!

sirdarksol

Plankton is probably your best bet, though brine shrimp might work out. You can buy liquid suspensions of plankton, as far as I know, to feed filter feeders.

drumbum540

Okay, thank you very much. I will tell you if I ever get around to doing it!