Crab – Gold Leg Matano Crab or Yellow Leg Towuti

Description

Gold Leg Matano Crab
Parathelphusa ferruginea
aka: Yellow Leg Towuti Crab

Life Span: 2-3 years
Size: 4-8 cm diameter w/ legs
Diet: Omnivorous
Habitat: fully aquatic/semi aquatic

Temp:79° – 85° F (26.7° – 29° C)
pH:7.2 – 8.5
KH: 5 – 8 dKH
Native to: Lake Matano, Sulawesi lake system of Indonesia

The Gold Leg Matano Crab is extremely colorful, fully aquatic, and fun to watch in the aquarium!

The brightly colored Gold Leg Matano Crab like the Panther crab (Parathelphusa ferruginea) is also a fully aquatic freshwater crab fairly new to the aquarium industry.

It has a purple carapace w golden legs that can also be lavender or lilac in color. (Parathelphusa pantherina).

These crabs require water with a generally higher pH and temperature than many other freshwater animals. It is fairly hardy and not very demanding.

Remember that Crabs are an opportunistic omnivorous scavenger that will forage your tank like a janitor. Feed sinking pellets and freeze dried foods such as bloodworms. The Gold Leg Matano Crab can be territorial so be sure to offer lots of great habitat and they’ll be happy! These crabs can be safely kept w active or fast moving fish species but there they may prey on sluggish or sleeping fish.

Gold Leg Matano Crabs can safely be housed with Tetras, Guppies, Mollys, Bettas Catfish & many other tropical fish. Since some hobbyists believe these crabs like to come out of the water it’s a good idea to have a small landing place for them, but is not necessary. As with most invertebrates they do much better if they are in a tank that has clean water. Keep up on your water changes & bacteria additives. These little guys will eat all sorts of food like sinking shrimp pellets, bloodworms and they will eat dead plant material, algae and leaves. They should be supplemented with algae wafers and sinking pellets if there are no algae in your aquarium. Iodine supplements will keep shells healthy and promote good shell production. If you flip your crab over the female will have a shell that has a salmon-colored round area with a ‘tip’ at the top. On the males, the entire under shell is white/ivory but has lines that make it look like a butterfly has been drawn on its underside. Most crabs berry in a similar fashion to crayfish and the Panther Crab is thought to have a larval stage where young stay very close as if attached to the female. These aren’t considered an aggressive crab however larger, slow moving fish may become a target if you don’t keep them well fed.

In addition it’s important to keep plenty of hiding places in your tank for your crabs. If you have several then you should have at least more dwellings than you have crabs. When they molt, they will be hungry, so leave their shed shell in the tank as they will eat these to salvage nutrients. Never release your pets into the wild as they can become invasive. Stocking info-These are a small colonizing crab. Using them as a single crab is okay, but they will do best in a colony. You can easily raise 5 in a 10 gallon tank without issue. Offering rocks or wood to crawl under will keep them happy.

Arizona Aquatic Gardens offers a wide variety of aquatic creatures including the Panther Crab.

size at shipping: about 1.25″

Min order no less than 2 please

We do not honor gender specific requests for any Crab orders. They are always shipped as randomly unsexed organisms
Thank you.