Fiddler crabs, just like every other type of crab are very aggressive and territorial, they could kill and eat whatever they can or whatever crosses their territory, be it fish, frogs, and other aquarium animals. I got a question from one of my readers asking me if he could be able to keep Fiddler crabs with snails in his tank, knowing that snails could eat algae and crabs could eat snails. I decided to write this article to help anybody else anywhere that’s seeking the same answer.
Do Fiddler Crabs eat Snails? Snails are a potential meal for crabs if they are kept together in the same tank.
Unless you are a newbie in fishkeeping, etc, you must have known what can live with what and what can’t live with what.
What I mean to say above is that crabs of any type, including Fiddler crabs are not good tank mates to any type of aquarium snail.
Their temperament differs a lot, although they can live in the same temperature, pH, etc because so many snails are brackish water dwellers, and some are both freshwater and brackish water dwellers too.
So, Fiddler crabs could have been a perfect match to Snails when it comes to being tank mates, but their temperaments differ a lot, so they can’t live together.
Snails are very slow animals and have no atom of aggression in them, but on the other hand, Fiddler crabs and other crabs are very aggressive in nature and will kill and eat any other animal that they could, including snails because they are omnivores, meaning they are capable of eating both flesh and vegetables too.
Both Snails and Fiddler crabs are tropical animals and could live in the same water, but the only reason why it will be suicidal for Snails to be kept with them is that they will kill and eat them. Snail is one of their favorite meals.
Do Crabs Eat Snails?
Knowing that Fiddler crabs are not in any way compatible with snails, you might want to know if crabs, in general, will eat snails too.
Do crabs eat snails? Crabs are aggressive and territorial, they will eat any slow-moving bottom-dwellers they could kill, including snails.
To tell you the simple fact, all crabs are aggressive and they all fall into the omnivores category, meaning they eat both flesh and vegetables.
Again, snails are one of their favorite means, and being too slow in movement and also a bottom dweller makes them very vulnerable to crabs.
So, crabs do eat snails and will kill and eat any snail that gets closer to them.
Apart from eating them, some crabs such as the hermit crab do use their shells as their house, meaning they live in snail’s shells.
So, generally, crabs will harm snails and will even eat them.
Will Vampire Crabs Eat Snails?
Vampire crabs, just like every other type of crab are aggressive. They will kill and eat snails if they have the opportunity to.
As I explained above in this article, all crabs love to eat snails and will grab them if they are opportune to do so.
So, vampire crabs will eat any type of snail that gets close enough to them.
So, vampire crabs and snails are not compatible with each other in any way.
Do Blue Crabs Eat Snails?
Just like any other type of crab, blue crabs are scavengers too, and they love eating snails.
These crabs could eat anything they can be able to kill, so, because of the sluggish nature of snails, they will be easily eaten by blue crabs if they happen to be in the same tank.
In the wild, Snails are one of the favorite foods for blue crabs and many other types of crab.
So, there is no crab that won’t eat snails if they have the opportunity to do so.
What Can Live With Fiddler Crabs?
knowing that snails are not compatible to live with fiddler crabs and other crabs too, you might want to know the animals that could peacefully coexist with Fiddler crabs in a tank.
To be more helpful, here are the animals that could live with fiddler crabs in the same tank.
Molly fish.
Platy fish.
Swordtails.
Bumblebee Goby. etc.
Sometimes, the most effective way to keep a very aggressive Aquatic animal with tank mates is to keep them with bottom dwellers if they are surface dwellers or the other way round, that’s keeping them with surface dwellers if they are bottom dwellers.
Conclusion
Fiddler crabs will eat snails, and they do enjoy eating them, so they are not compatible with each other.
Don’t listen to any shop telling you they are compatible because if you do keep them together, you will have to lose your snails to the crabs
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