EMERGENCY!!!!!!!!!!

[aussieJJDude]

That's quite interesting emmac350. Had a quick glance at the paper; shall study it when I get the chance.

I guess it is something I learnt today; a few crabbers I know recommend olive oil around the lip of the shell to entice them to their new home and I've had it work for me with some apparent success. Lets just say; it was a "lesson learnt" today.

[emmac350]

I wonder if the difference is that our crabs know that they have everything they need in our tanks? If your crab isn't starving and/or literally way too big for their shell they might be a little more open to the idea of whichever one they weren't looking for and just happened on. Wait, did that make sense? What I'm trying to say is a crab that knows it will be able to eat whenever it wants might be more open to a shell being found where it was looking for food and, if it thinks it's found a shell but gets food instead (but knows that there are plenty of shells around) might go for the food and not go hardcore for finding the shell it thought it had found previously.

Oh, bother. I'm not sure if any of that makes sense.

[Ginger]

So, you're saying that because they have good availability of resources in captivity, they are quite happy to "go with the flow" so to speak and check out whatever they've found, rather than stressing about survival and suiting their prioritised needs like they would in their natural environment? If not, I have NO idea what you are saying Emmac!

[emmac350]

You got what I meant. Because they know they have ample supplies of all normally-scarce resources they don't mind going for what they thought was food but turned out to be a shell, or going for what they thought was a shell but turned out to be food.