Advice need for keeping crabs (red clawed/ vampire)

alanalea

Afternoon all. Has anyone on here got any experience of keeping crabs (non tropical) or can you direct me to a good forum?

We currently have 4 red clawed crabs in a basic tank set up with brackish water at a temp of 78f. The tank is set with 80% water with large climbing rocks and hidey holes. They are currently thriving, with lots of growing and molting :T

Now, we'd love to make a bigger tank set up with something like this


We'd also like to introduce some different crabs into the set-up, namely Vampire crabs

Is it possible to keep 2 different species of crabs in the same tank? Also with the above set-up, how do you go about keeping the shallow water filtered and warm (Do they make mini heaters and filters?)

Would introducing new crabs cause problems with our existing ones, or if the tank is large enough and they are well fed should they keep to themselves?

Any help would be appreciated.

doodle-bug_2

I used to keep the small red-clawed ones - lovely little things! They used to love lots of bog-wood, which turns the water a little bit 'off colour' but they love the soft wood to climb on.
I also kept Amano shrimps in the water - books say you shouldn't as the crabs can attack them (but crabs and shrimps can't read books!) In fact, the shrimp used to steal the food from the crabs which was amusing to watch.
Yes, you can get smaller filters/pumps and heaters for these set-ups.
As you no doubt know by now, the crabs do try to do a runner as soon as the tank lid is lifted - and they are really fast!
I'm not familiar with Vampire crabs - I'll Google them and have a look.