Wednesday, May 9, 2007

House Plants

Many house plants are poisonous to pets, but some of them are safe for crabs.

Spider plants --(Chlorophytum comosum, also known as Airplane plants) are safe. Crabs will eat the long fresh leaves and the small white blossoms.
Aloe Vera --is on the safe food list, but many crab-keepers avoid it. My crabs have never eaten them.
Hen & Chicks --is on the safe food list, but my crabs didn't eat it very well.
Bromiliads --Most bromiliads are safe. Pineapple is one example of bromiliad that crabs are known to favor.
Fuchsia --(see comment by Pearl.)
(This entry will be edited as more info is discovered, but I wanted to post it now so that our readers can share their experiments and results with common house plants by commenting here.)

Here is a nice website that lists the general toxicity of common houseplants:
http://lancaster.unl.edu/factsheets/031.htm

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I put five or six dried fuschia leaves into my crabitat in March 2007, all the leaves were gone by the third day. At first, I thought they were burying them, but when I sifted through the sand I couldn't find a crumb anywhere. No one has died, so I assuming it is safe for the crabs.

Just to be sure that they actually liked the leaves, I put another five leaves in the tat the beginning of May 2007. Again all the leaves were gone by the second day.
Christina Knaus (a.k.a. Pearl on Crab Street Journal)

Anonymous said...

Beginning of June 2007, I put three dried fuschia flowers in the tat. Within half an hour the flowers were dragged out of the dish and ripped apart. The first parts to go were the stamens and pistols. Two days later the flowers are completely gone.

Christina Knaus (a.k.a. Pearl on Crab Street Journal)

??? said...

I tried offering them Ficus bejamina leaves twice. They didn't touch them at all, neither fresh nor dry leaves. The same happend with a rubber fig leaf. I don't know if it's the sap, but they just avoid it.