Resolved Sand sifting crab from North Pacific Ocean

I wouldn't worry too much if one dies on you, they're very small anyway.

 

I remember digging these out on Daytona Beach by the hand fulls! They're kind of freaky, but I don't really think they would hurt anything. Somebody at the beach said they make soup with them.... I don't know this for a fact though.

 

I used to see these all the time at St. Augustine Beach, FL. Used to collect them in a bucket and "play" with them as a kid...

 

Good shore fishing bait right there. If these work out good for you I might go pick a couple up myself, I'm about 5 minutes from the beach!

 

as everyone already said, if these go well ill have to get myself some...seeing as i have an 8 gal tank and nothing could possibly sift that sand. lol my only worry is if they are carryinig a parasite. or possible baby jellyfish...etc

 

Follow up:

Seems like 3 of 6 are survived, and doing very well. Once lights on in the morning they start to pop up out of the sand for a short swim. One of them is really active and I can see him going for a swim every 15-20 mins. My 29g seted up as frag tank to grow my 25 lps frags, most of them are on the SB, and sometimes he bump right into frag, so I have to fix it sometimes, but overall we are really happy with them, cuz of SB used to look very ugly due to heavy coral feeding, now it's nearly perfect. I'll see if I can get a short video of them with my phone. Unfortunatelly I don't have a pics of my tank with ugly SB with all kind of Algae and detritus I had before.

P.S. It's so fun to watch them swimming!

 

They are filter feeders. Their antennae collect from the water column & then they scrap them off. AKA mole crabs.

I put 6 in my tank this summer (I got when in FL). They lasted a/b six months, b/c they are quite out of their habitat. Seldomly I'd see them swimming to the surface & back again. They are good for the sand though.

 

+1 to sand flea. Filter feeders, turkey basting the rock will send food their way or you can target feed them. Sand fleas are sand fleas... the range of the species in FL goes up past Maine, so even though your species is different, it may have a broad range too. They tend to be very hardy temp wise, living in the surge zone you almost have to be...

Found on every beach shore you see birds pecking at the sand. They make sand flea rakes, you drag them across the shore where the waves are breaking before they lap and you catch hundreds of them...you can find them in most bait stores too.


and +1 to everyone else. I just like to type, I dont care they already mentioned it, it is my day off.

 

And then there's this. Skip it up to 4 minutes.

YouTube - Bizarre Foods - Thailand 2/6

 

Follow up: I thought that only 3 of them survived, but today I've seen em all swimming