How do you keep river crabs alive after buying them and bringing them home?

River crab is a kind of crab that people eat relatively often. Compared with sea crabs, river crabs are a bit cheaper and more convenient to buy, so how do you keep river crabs after buying them?

1. Basic introduction to river crabs

River crabs are animals of the family Grapsidae and the genus Eriocheir. They often live in burrows on the muddy banks of rivers, lakes and marshes, and feed on fish, shrimp, animal carcasses and grains. Every autumn they often migrate to estuaries that flow into the sea to spawn, and hatch from March to May the following year. After developing into juvenile crabs, they migrate back upstream and are a food that people greatly enjoy.

River crabs like to live in burrows on the muddy banks or tidal flats of rivers and lakes, or hide among gravel and aquatic plants. Burrowing is an instinct for river crabs and also an adaptive way for them to defend against enemies.

River crabs have a very mixed diet. Under natural conditions they mainly eat aquatic plants and humus, are fond of animal carcasses, and also like to eat snails, mussels, worms and insects. Occasionally they also prey on small fish and shrimp.

2. How do you keep river crabs after buying them?

Prepare a relatively large basin and add some water, then put the river crabs into the basin and change the clean water once a day. If you bought a relatively large number of river crabs, you can prepare a bucket to keep them, which can prevent the crabs from escaping.

3. Types of river crabs

1. Yangcheng Lake hairy crab

Produced in Yangcheng Lake in the Suzhou area of Jiangsu, because of the excellent water ecology, the crabs produced in Yangcheng Lake have the characteristics of a crisp shell with a firm surface and a large individual size.

2. Panjin river crab

The body is short, thick and heavy, and the back shell is dark in color, mostly black or iron-blue. From September each year it begins to be full of roe and rich in paste.

3. Nanhu crab

Produced in the water network area of Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Huzhou in Zhejiang Province, it has long been famous for its large individual size and delicious meat. The lake crabs here used to rely on natural reproduction, and were caught and brought to market during the flood season every year. Artificial breeding and stocking have already begun, and certain results have been achieved.