Acro crab

[Bluephish13]

It is more likely than you think just got to look close or ask.

I have seen them at ARC and SWP many times. Mostly on the dense branching acro frags.


I even used tank water to fill the qt tank for him(so def no shock). I shooed him off the Bottle brush very easy (no harm to him). Then directly on to a frag of A.suharsonoi. So i could treat my entire display tank, and keep him on a frag in QT. The plan was to save him then toss the frag and put him back in his original when it was done with treatment.

The A. suharsonoi frag lived but the crab died the first night. This makes me think they can not easily be removed from the host. So if you are ordering a crab without a coral i would bet you get a dead crab or one that is not really a "ACRO" crab.

 

[aquadonkey]

Sad - all right, no acro crab for me.....
I don't want to buy the pretty little guy just on the off chance that he'll survive.

 

[aquadonkey]

Sorry Kat - you're going to have to "get crabs" without me

 

[superkat]

i'm with ya Lizzy....i'll try to get crabs at a LFS.

 

[cardiffgiant]

Thanks for the tip on not trying to buy acro crabs separately from the acro. I thought about picking some up from liveaquaria.

New question: if I get an acro that has one, will my 12 line wrasse pull it out of there and have a snack?

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Thanks for the tip on not trying to buy acro crabs separately from the acro. I thought about picking some up from liveaquaria.

New question: if I get an acro that has one, will my 12 line wrasse pull it out of there and have a snack?

that's a strong possibility.

 

[Bluephish13]

My sixline never tried to gobble him up that i could tell. If one was hungry enough maybe, but i doubt they would look at a acro crab as a first food source.

but every fish is diff.

 

[Posidion]

like somebody already posted.... most of the SPS at LFS's already have these crabs in them

They aren't extremely visible. Almost every SPS in my aquarium has one in it. Didn't you see them

+1 on this. IME every acro that was maricultured had one when i bought it, i had many in my tank for weeks b4 i noticed the crabs. At first i was concerned but then i learned most of the are harmless and even helpful to the coral. After learning that i began to look for them in colonies at the lfs and noticed 90% of them had one and some larger ones had 2. i have a few that relocated them selves after their host died on me and others that died soon after the host coral. there is a good ID site that i picked up from somone here for theese little guys but search will not let me find it now, if any one has it please post. i thought you posted it b4 Gary but i could be wrong it was a couple years back. but ive seen it mentioned recently in other forums.:dance:

oh yeah they dont adopt a new frag till it is significantly branched to aprox 2"-3" dia. The tighter the branches the better they like it. just an observation.