Pseudosesarma moeshi (formerly Sesarma bidens)

This 5cm (females 4cm) Red Clawed Mangrove Crab needs land and water to thrive. Paludarium/ Aqua-terrarium with lots of hiding places is the best housing solution for P. moeshi, or any soft water crabs.
It can be kept in both, fresh and brackish water. If kept responsibly (good diet and good hygiene) this Crab can live up to 4 years (if not longer). Harder water prefered and one should avoid too low pH and KH. Brackish conditions should be created with Marine Salt not the NaCl table salt. Marine salt contains all the essential minerals/traces. This crab is an opportunist and will eat almost everything ; plants (for some reason it doesn't eat Cryptocoryne sp. and the Anubias afzelii), will catch slow moving fish, prepared tablet/pellet food, frozen worms, mussels, vegetables, fruit....

Males, except from being larger, have bigger claws which are more red, while the female claws have more orange/brownish color. Female has a wide tail under her body where she accommodates the eggs, and male has a more pointy tail used for fertilising the eggs.

Egg carrying female;

Newly hatched zoea larvae approx 1mm in size;
I have found one great, illustrated, article about breeding Sesarma bidens (Pseudosesarma moeshi) written and illustrated by a Finish aquarist Jukka Järvi.

Moulted female exoskeleton (this is not a dead crab ;-) );
Photos by Dusko Bojic