I,ll try and clear a few points up regarding the keeping of peeler crabs.
If you obtain crabs close to peeling with the intention of freezing them for a session in the future put them in water about half the depth of the crabs and change it DAILY. It,s in your best intrest to get them to peel as soon as possible. They won,t die as long as they are cool, there are no fridges (working) in the north sea. If you intend to hold the crabs back for a forth coming event put them in a fridge and cover them with a damp cloth and dampen it daily also but don,t leave any water in the tray because it dos,nt matter how cold they are at this stage the peel is irreversable and they will take in water which they need to swell and then peel. If you have a lot of crabs to look after (like Lobbers Grin) You will need a fridge or a tank because looking after them can be laborious by means of the above mentioned. A tank can be beneficial as it gives you the option of keeping crabs and bringing them on from an a very early state of peel something that a fridge dos,nt as the cold usually reverses it. For this the bigger the tank the better. During the hieght of summer the water really needs to be cooled and well aerated especially if you have a lot of crabs as the water will go stale and cloudy and it is,nt practical to change such a large volume of water on a regular basis. I use a beer cooler myself but they are quite difficult to get hold of now. On this system I can fill my tank up once in a season having to only top it up now and again because of evaparation. In autumn when I usually have a few whites I sit a tank above my crab tank which is half full of coal dust and have the cooled water going directly into it where the whites will live indefinately, 18 months being the longest, it would have been much longer but that was my last one! I,ll see if I can get a pic or two(I hate this bit)
My cooler is,nt on at the moment as I want the crab :'( to peel as soon as posible. I will also double the volume of water and have it well aerated once my crabbing starts in earnest. Also the room they are in has no windows and is on the North facing side of the house which helps. I put the worm tank on top just to show you. The white outlet pipe is covered with a fine mesh to stop any escapee,s and there is no aeration in this tank just a steady trickle of very cold water. When the velvets peel it will be quite cramped in the red tank but the mortality rate is minimal, cold water at this stage is a must.
When Do Crabs Peel ?The crab peel usually goes in this order:-
green dogs
green hens-dog velvets -small edible hens and dogs
velvet hens-big edible hens (these peel before the dogs)
velvet dogs-big edible dogs -green dogs(again)
that is a generalisation but of course there,s variants and before anyone says anything, I never said I collected edibles I just told you the sequence!
