Keep Fiddler Crabs alive by building the perfect Fiddler Crab Habitat!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.พ. 2020
- Keep your Fiddler Crabs alive by building a fiddler crab habitat. Follow these easy steps to learn fiddler crab care.
Catch Fiddler crabs and keep them alive by the thousands by building a Fiddler Crab habitat! Many people have a fiddler crab tank but fiddler farms can keep crabs alive for extended periods of time by the thousands. Learn what to feed fiddler crabs and much more.
The methods described in this video will not apply to sand fleas. It will teach you long term fiddler crab care and habitat. When no one else has any fiddlers for bait, you will be catching sheepshead!
By creating or building a habitat for your fiddlers, it will keep them alive overnight and even for weeks. We show in full detail (like no one ever has) how to keep fiddler crabs alive by creating a fiddler crab Farm with a cheap cooler, construction sand or playground sand, brackish river water, a few rocks, some hiding places for the crabs and a few other tricks. We keep around 6,000 fiddler crabs alive using four separate crab habitats at right at my home. Keeping sand fleas alive is a different habitat we'll show in a later video.
Keeping your fiddler crabs alive at home is really more of a hobby than anything, and little time and effort is needed. They do require a little maintenance in the winter time and a brackish water source which we will reveal how simple this all is. We hope you enjoy the video how to and learn from it as we have.
A few facts about fiddler crabs
1. Fiddler Crabs cannot withstand direct exposure to cold air. This is why they dig deep into the sand and mud flats.
2. Fiddler Crabs do not like wind. It irritates their eye antennas sending them into the ground.
3. Fiddlers are not hard to keep alive when properly cared for in a habitat.
4. Fiddler Crabs do not like straight ocean salt water. It will kill the crabs when in captivity. Brackish water from back water creeks and rivers is the perfect water source for fiddlers.
As a 30-year guide, sheepshead is a big Target of ours in Northeast Florida and in Southeast Georgia. In this video, I personally reveal a few tips and tricks about keeping them alive for extended periods of time. Going out to catch fiddler crabs is definitely not my game. But, very good crab Catchers in our area the catch up to 20,000 fiddler crabs in just an hour or two. Meaning, it's very easy to purchase thousands of crabs for very little money if you have a fiddler crab habitat in place to keep them alive, you'll never buy them again this season if you tend to the crab habit as shown.
There's a few things Fiddler's do not like. They do not like wind over 5 miles per hour. Fiddler crabs do not like cold weather whatsoever and dig deep and become extremely difficult to locate and catch. Nothing short of a backhoe would dig these fiddler crabs out of the ground when the air temperature is below 50 degrees. With that said, the guys who catch fiddler crabs for a living can only catch them on days that there are thousands crawling across sand Flats which makes catching thousands of fiddlers easy. This occurs in the salt marshes all over the southeast. This is when you need a fiddler Farm to capitalize on those times when fiddler catchers have thousands to sell. Even if you don't need fiddler crabs for bait at that time, get them.. Because you will need them.
When you are able to get fiddler crabs in big numbers your farm will become handy immediately. This is when you need to get the crabs.. when they're available and you can keep them until the cold weather sets in and you will have the river and ocean to yourself because no one else will have Fiddlers.. but you will!
So the bottom line is, this is a wintertime problem for people who like to sheepshead fish in the winter. And as luck would have it, the winter season happens to be the time you need the fiddler crabs the most as the largest sheepshead of the year will be feeding from January through March.
This also happens to be the time when the fiddler crabs are hardest to catch or even find due to the windy and cold weather here in the south at that time. So without the fiddler crabs, it makes it far more difficult to catch them regardless of opinion. People often use clams sea urchins and other tricks for catching Sheepshead, but it's very nice to have a bucket full of 300 fiddler crabs on the boat or on the bank or jetty rocks because you've got plenty and you can fish all day everyday because remember, you've got a fiddler farm with 1000 to 4000 Fiddlers at home and you can sheepshead fish as much as you'd like. And again, you can fish when no one else has the best bait for Sheepshead, the beloved Fiddler crab... But you will have them! So, Fish on! - กีฬา
What an informative video! Excellent explanation of how to care for fiddlers.
Appreciate it Buddy! I hope it'll help some people. If they take the time to do it, they'll be ready to sheepshead fish when no one else has any bait unless they own a backhoe! 😁
He knows his stuff! Just glad he's back, just found this channel.
He's 100% right about the water. I keep them as pets and they defecate like crazy overnight.
You’re not wrong
Now that's how it is done for long term fiddler crab care! Ordered two coleman coolers just now off the wally app. Thanks for the info Capt, Glad to find your new channel!
Super cool! No wonder y'all always have bait. 👍
This is a good video I wondered if I could keep a bunch alive for a long period of time
Great job
Excellent info capt. I remember a couple of years ago you had a ton of fiddlers y'all kept alive for like a year. Jc told me you were building a super size farm right now. Thanks for sharing as always buddy.
Yes, we're building a fiddler crab hotel right now. All has been documented on video, will upload that one within the next month. Thanks for watching and sharing, I'm back to stay, no more company selling for me. Just fishing! ✌️👍👍
Great video man. Definitely gonna give this a shot.
Great informative vid !
I just found your videos and I trying to watch them great info thanks for making them
No problem, lots more coming this season. Thanks for watching! Stay tuned 👍👍
Thanks RJ!! Safe fishing!!
Jessie, thank you! Same to you buddy. Fish on!
Wow. Thanks for the great video. I have a lot of that stuff at work that we pulled out of inventory. My new hobby here in Tampa Thanks so much. Just subscribed
No problem..! Enjoy it!
SO glad you're back doing videos Capt RL.. I'm watching them all this morning with Donnie. We appreciate you guys! GO TEAM GARMIN!
Dana, agreed! We're glad to see him back on with a new channel! Always good content.
Yep, back on the tube. Fiddler crab super size hotel being built by me and Josh is correct. I will be loading up a video on it. Fish on!
I don't go fishing but this just a good care video if you want these as pets
Enjoyed the video, Thank You
Thank you Charley!
I have relased 100 crabs in my plastic tank last night.
I live in coastal sc and I need fiddler crabs supply for personal use not for sale. Need some help Cap. Where do you buy them?
There's gotta be a fiddler guy in Charleston or Hilton Head.. If there's not, I can get you a couple thousand. We start grabbing them in late February in our area.. Very close to jekyll Island. Just add me on Facebook. Look up Richie Lott (Capt Richie Lott) on fb.
Have you used a heating pad under the cooler
Never used a heating pad. Only heating from the top side of the farm.
Could you do a video when you clean the whole system? That would be great
It's very straight forward.. It's good to have a couple of these large coolers to make it quicker.. Either way, You'll need to catch most of the crabs. Toss them into a bucket with luke warm water which cleans them. Dump all the sand, clean their "toys" from the cooler/farm. Then clean the cooler, then add 2 new sand bags of sand and add the clean crabs back into the farm.. That's it..
Im confused on how you keep the sand moist and cleaned? You cycle the sand or just sprinkle water over the sand? I'll rewatch the video a few more times but I wanna be sure the sand and water process?
Honestly, we have done it several ways.. Including just completely swapping out the sand.. Filtering it takes a little while but works OK.. Most recently, we've been swapping out the sand because sand is so cheap to buy.. If you don't clean it some way, they'll die from their own feces due to their gills being on the bottom side of their bodies, they literally start wallowing in it and it kills them. The bottom layer of sand turns black first.. Then it starts to get farther up into the crabs crawling and living environment, gotta watch for that.. When you get a half inch of black at the bottom of the sand in the box, it's gotta be filtered or swapped out.. Good time to clean up the crabs as well..
You can use a stock tank from the feed stores
Bottled water will keep them alive for a few days until you can get some saltwater. I had probably 6 dozen or so in a smaller cooler that I gave bottled water for a couple weeks until I could get back out to get saltwater and I only lost one or two crabs. I don't think it would be good for them long term but it'll keep them alive for a little bit
Yes.. It will work short term. Really need brackish water stored in a bucket. Ocean water will burn them up. Tried that years ago they immediately died. Slight salinity (brackish) is best, but you're right, fresh clean, non chlorinated water will work for a good while
Hey buddy great video I have a question do you have to keep the dirt moist or dry for keeping fiddler crabs long term ? Also I have a large ice cooler and I drilled a bunch of holes in the lid for the waste to exit the cooler and fresh air to enter do u thank that will work or will I need to keep the lid open at all times
I like to moisten the sand once a week with brackish river water we keep on hand. When running the heat lamp, I'll moisten it every 2 days. Remember, always freshen up their main water source daily.
@@RichieLott ok thank you I really appreciate the advice
@@RichieLott hey buddy I have about 250 fiddler crabs set up exactly like you have it in the cooler and so far so good except I have a question I have exact same water water bowel and the fiddler crabs keep emptying it out about every 4 hours so are you refilling the bowel 2 to 3 times a day because that’s what I am doing or should I be only filling it once day ?
Can you use light/sandy gravel?
Hello sir, what you feed them.??
Can I use an old stand up freezer that no longer works if I lay it down would that be good enough for him
Yes.. You can. That would actually work great once it's set up.
Do they actively breed
I’m in Brunswick ga. Where do you operate out of ?
Right on.. They're biting very well offshore and inshore right now (sheep's).. We run out of Hickory Bluff Marina
What is the food crab
🦀🦀🦀 my crabs r my friends. But pet store had 🦀
Where you located at ?
Georgia/Florida line on the coast. Near Jekyll Island
🥰💕🦀🆘.., will river water ( Sacramento River) be ok❓
Needs to be brackish.. If you see them on the banks, that's a good sign the water is good for them
can i use play sand?
Yes.. Just keep it slightly moist with brackish water from a river or creek. The crabs will move the sand around like they want it over a couple of days.. Remember, lows below 60, add a heat lamp and covering. Any Temps 62 degrees and up, they are fine without heat or covering. UPDATES - Once you get them into a dried blood worm and algae wafer diet (not meal worms), they stop smelling like crabs as their droppings and excretions become nearly odorless from the organic diet of dried algae wafers and or dried blood worms. These foods are fish foods and available on Amazon
@@RichieLott thank you so much i will do that
I tried to do that with 12 and every day thay died it don’t go below 70
There's some sort of trauma or contamination. 12 crabs should stay alive in a 5 gallon bucket with no food for days normally at 70 degrees. Something isn't right there.. Where are you located?
@@RichieLott florida but i think i had mud crabs
🦀🦀 pet store had them totally under water 🙄
They're semi aquatic.
Can do both land n aquatic mode. But i think it's better to keep em on land and give some water.
If they submerge in water for too long, i think they gonna die. But idk.
Edit: hm or maybe crabs youve seen before is different crab? The full aquatic crab
Yup, lots of people completely submerge them and they will live that way for a good while. However, they'll eventually need to eat something better for them such as blood worms.