Crab Spawn?

[Johnny Reefer]

Last night, during the hours of darkness, I witnessed something quite cool in my FOWLR tank. A small crab, about 1/3", appeared to me to be releasing what looked like eggs into the water current. There was a cluster of, what looked like, eggs down underneath it by the abdomen. It was kind of standing vertical and thrusting it's abdomen to and fro and with each thrust some of the "eggs" would be released from the cluster. Once in the current, I could see them lower down and right up by the front glass. Using the reference library, I have since learned that crabs hold there eggs between the abdomen and the cephalothorax and, if I understood this correctly, release them at the larval stage. So this may very well have been larvae that I saw being released, not eggs. The were soooooo tiny.
Anyhoo, it was quite interesting and just thought I'd share it.
Night viewing can be so interesting. Something I don't do enough of.

Cheers,

[Beverly]

Cool that you saw the amazing event I usually use night time for sleeping

Out of curiousity, was this a desirable crab that released the eggs?

[Johnny Reefer]

Didn't get a good enough look at it for ID purposes, but it is desirable in that it's in an FOWLR and is part of the clean up crew. Actually, I want more crabs for this tank.

Cheers,