Tomato Vampire Crab

Do you have a paludarium ready for a Tomato Vampire Crab?

You’ll need one before you order. The Tomato Vampire Crab (Geosesarma sp. “Tomato”, also sold as Red Ruby) is a semi-terrestrial crab. It lives on land and uses water, so a planted aquarium filled to the lid is the wrong home for it. Tank-bred by Shrimp Aquatics, these crabs aren’t collected from the wild.

If you already run a humid paludarium, or you’re ready to build one properly, this crab can suit you. If you were hoping for a crab to add to a shrimp or fish aquarium, it won’t.

What the Tomato Vampire Crab enclosure needs before arrival

Get every item on this list in place and running before the box ships:

• A lid that closes with no gaps, including around cables and tubing, because escape prevention is part of the setup.
• A real land area, not a thin strip of gravel above the waterline.
• Water the crab can walk into and climb out of from any point.
• Humidity you can hold steady and check on your own gauge.
• Hides on land, such as cork bark, wood, leaf litter or plants.
• A clean water section with ammonia and nitrite at 0.

Can Tomato Vampire Crabs share a paludarium with other animals?

Yes, with the right animals in the water section. At Shrimp Aquatics, we keep Neocaridina shrimp in the water section of our vampire crab paludariums. They breed there, and the crabs rarely manage to catch them. Keep only small, peaceful fish, because an aggressive fish can eat a crab or harass one that has come down into the water to molt. Other crabs are a different matter: two Geosesarma that look alike aren’t necessarily the same species, so the other vampire crabs in our range each need an enclosure of their own.

Keeping several Tomato Vampire Crabs together? Give them enough hides that every crab can get out of sight at once, then watch how the group settles over the first weeks. If one crab keeps getting chased out of cover, add more hides or split the group.

Arrival day for your Tomato Vampire Crabs

Have the enclosure humid and settled before delivery, then follow the instructions packed with your order, since the packing and transit time can change what’s right. Open the box in a quiet room, don’t handle the crabs, and let them walk into cover on their own. A safe default is to leave new crabs alone for the first few days apart from your normal misting.