Sulawesi fine spotted crab

Care at a glance

Overview

The Sulawesi fine spotted crab is a territorial bottom dweller from Sulawesi for a warm, hard-water tank. It is best with a little experience.

Caring for the Sulawesi fine spotted crab

The Sulawesi fine spotted crab is fully aquatic and needs no land, just a tight lid, because it climbs. Set up a tank of at least 16 gal (60 L) with sand, piles of rock with caves, and good flow and oxygen. Clean water matters more than plants, which it will dig up anyway.

Run it warm and hard, like a Sulawesi shrimp tank, at 75 to 84°F (24 to 29°C) and a pH of 7.5 to 8.5. Feed sinking pellets, frozen bloodworm, blanched vegetables and a little fish or shrimp meat. Keep cuttlebone in the tank for the molt.

Expect the same habits as the panther crab, its larger cousin from the same lakes. It hides in its cave by day, patrols at night and is territorial with its own kind. Keep one, or a male with one or two females in a big, well-structured tank, because males fight.

It eats anything it can hold, so dwarf shrimp, snails and fish that sleep on the bottom are food. Fast fish in the upper water are usually left alone. Like other freshwater crabs, it develops directly, releasing finished young instead of larvae. Breeding it is hard.

Good to know

Parathelphusa pallida is a freshwater crab in the family Gecarcinucidae. Schenkel described it in 1902 as a pale variety of Parathelphusa celebensis from the Kalaena tributaries. Bott treated it as a full species in 1970, and so did Chia and Ng in their 2006 revision of the Sulawesi crabs. It belongs to a knot of seven look-alike species, told apart mostly by the male gonopods and the swelling of the carapace. Trade crabs run to around 4 cm, though no firm maximum size is published. The IUCN lists it as Least Concern, with reports of declining numbers.

In the wild

The Sulawesi fine spotted crab is a stream crab of central and southern Sulawesi. It has been collected in the cold tributaries feeding Lake Towuti and in small rivers running into Lake Matano. It has also been found in the Balambano and Larona rivers near Malili, and as far as Lake Poso.

Common questions

Related species

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