How can you keep crabs alive at home? Whether or not to add water makes all the difference

Crabs have always been a flagship category in seafood markets, especially in autumn, when they are full of rich roe and oil and taste unforgettable. But crab prices at outside markets are rather expensive, often several dozen yuan per jin, and many people say it hurts their wallet to eat them! So if you want to keep crabs at home, exactly how should you raise them?

1. Should you add water when keeping crabs at home?

As for whether to add water when keeping crabs at home, the key depends on what your purpose is in keeping them.

1. Crabs bought from the market that will be eaten within a short time

The “short time” mentioned here generally means within 3 days. If that is the case, then when you buy the crabs the seller will also tell you that it is best not to put the crabs in water, and will suggest putting them in a slightly damp bucket and covering them with a wet towel.

If you put the crabs directly into water, it will cause insufficient dissolved oxygen and they will die.

2. Crabs bought from the market that will not be eaten within a short time

If they will not be eaten within a short time, then it is still recommended to keep them in clean water, but be careful not to use too much water; it only needs to just cover the backs of the crabs. In addition, you can also spread a layer of fine sand on the bottom of the container used to keep the crabs.

2. How can you keep crabs at home without them dying?

When keeping crabs at home, you can either start raising them from small crab seedlings or directly keep already mature crabs. The specific methods are as follows:

1. Rearing environment

To keep crabs at home, you can choose a relatively spacious pond with a certain depth that can prevent the crabs from escaping. It can be a cement pond or a larger plastic basin.

Spread a layer of about 10 cm of silt and about 5 cm of river sand in the crab-rearing pond. You can get some sand from a riverside or lakeside, or buy it online.

If you plan to keep crabs at home for the long term, you can also plant some easy-to-survive aquatic plants in the pond, such as Hydrilla verticillata, Vallisneria natans, and Elodea nuttallii. This can both purify the rearing water and serve as bait for the crabs to eat.

The specific number of aquatic plants to plant depends on the size of the rearing site and the number of crabs.

2. Crab size

It is recommended that the crabs kept in the same pond should not differ too much in size, so as not to affect the survival rate of the crabs.

In addition, make sure the crabs being kept are themselves disease-free and uninjured.

3. Rearing management

(1) Bait

During the rearing process, you can feed animal-based bait such as bloodworms, dried shrimp, river snails, and mussel meat, supplemented with plant-based bait such as aquatic plants, pumpkin, and potato. Feeding once in the morning and once in the evening will help the crabs grow better.

(2) Changing the water

On the issue of changing the water, it is recommended to change the water once every 3 days. After changing the water, you can splash an appropriate amount of quicklime over it to sterilize and disinfect it in time.

In short, although keeping crabs at home is convenient, you still need to put some thought into the rearing environment to raise the crabs well and plump!