Your thoughts on Horseshoe Crab

[Kryptikhan]

Ok, I know they can get up to 2 feet. But when small, are they effective sand bed sifters? Or are they going to eat all my life I have growig in my sand.......

They are just neat looking lol

Thx

[steven_dean17]

Everybody I've heard has said their hard to keep alive. I've never gotten one because of this.

[kau_cinta_ku]

you will have a dead sandbed if you do get one. but yes they are cool to watch I just will never own one due to the reason stated.

[poppin_fresh]

I dont have one and never have, so this is not from my experience, but I would say no. I read an article in Tropical Fish Hobbiest that said Horseshoe's would need a very large, very deep sandbed to sustain enough food for it to live....even a small one.

[bertoni]

They're also more temperature-water animals. They don't belong in a tropical reef, in my opinion.

[waxy]

Spent $20 bucks on mine, bought it online. Died within a few days, thats my guess, because I cleaned my tank a month ago, a full clean up I find no signs of him or the shell.

Worth the experience.

[boxerzz]

under sand ?

[cpl40475]

if you buy one good luck on keeping it alive. Every thing ive ever read on them being kept in captivity has had bad results. Theres other ways to keep your sandbed clean

[Blown 346]

I agree, they need a deep enough sand bed that they can complety bury themselves. It also has to be teaming qwith life which will be eaten since that's what they eat.

They do grow very large and 95% of them die if not more.

[Paintbug]

my thoughts on them are they are one of the coolest creatures you will ever watch, in nature were they belong.

[Zestay]

also.. anything thats going to stab my fingers while im trying to set a frag in my sand bed = bad.

i dont like my reef biting me at all.