Bad crab - ID?

[nhlives]

This crab along with another same or similar crab hitchiked in on some LR back when I first built the display tank. I managed to get the two of them into the fuge last fall. This guy promptly killed and devoured the other. Here recently I put a peppermint shrimp in the fuge for aptasia control. It only took about a day before the peppermint's remains were on the bottom of the fuge. This guy is now in the sump. I don't know for sure what it is or how "nasty" it is on the continuum of "nasty" measure but it is pretty dangerous. Can anyone ID?

 

[LeslieH]

It's one of the hundreds of xanthid species that can be found on live rock. These tend to be aggressive predators that enjoy crab & shrimp just as much as any patron of Red Lobster. In the absence of other crustaceans they will sample any other "meat" they can find, whether living or dead. Once that's gone they'll eat detritus & algae to survive.

 

[nhlives]

Thanks...Love your reply...Since I'm not running a Red Lobster this guy will have to figure out how to make a living in the fuge.

 

[rick12]

how will you get him out?

 

[nhlives]

This time was no problem as he was already in the fuge. However, the story is that I was having problems keeping a coral in place. Something kept moving it. Assuming it was the pesky turbo snails, I just put it back each night. One night as I started to move it, something pulled back; a very strange feeling moment.

On the other end of the coral frag was one of these crabs. I had to remove the rock as the crab was living in a small “cave” and I had to remove some rock to get to it. Anyway, into the fuge he went. Thinking this was a lone hitchhiker, I felt sure my troubles were over.

Several months later, I put some cheato from the fuge into the main display to disperse pods and Stomatella Snails. When I went to put the cheato back into the fuge, I found the second crab hanging out in the cheato. Into the fuge he went to join the first. They didn’t along very well as I found pieces of one of them lying on the bottom one morning.

So I don't have any magic bullet for removing these guys. Hopefully there no others but with the amount of LR i my system I wouldn't be surprised to find others in the future.

You can check out the tank at http://hollcraft.ws/reef.

 

[rick12]

i used the water glass trick to get the crab. leaned a water glass on a 45 angle with bait in the bottom. this morning when i looked at the tank==there he was. couldn't crawl up the glass!
he's now in the sump