Calico Crab, Shamefaced Crab

[pinkcbr95]

I found this interesting crab at AquaLife. He is called a Calico Crab (Hepatus epheliticus). He was very pretty and had brightly colored spots on him a brownish/purple color. He was the size of a softball. I was thinking about getting him and putting him in my crab tank. Does anyone know anything about him?


<a href="http://s135.photobucket.com/albums/q158/murphywinston/?action=view&current=5051_23.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q158/murphywinston/5051_23.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

 

[Western_reefer]

Wow! Very pretty crab!! how much was he?

 

[pinkcbr95]

He was like $20-$25... somewhere around there.

 

[bluenassarius]

cool lookin crab

 

[D&KSac]

Its a really cool looking crab no one knows if its reef safe huh?

 

[thebest3]

here a little discription on it
http://www.gulfspecimen.org/SpecPlates2.html

 

[philter4]

Not reef safe, they will eat any shrimp or clam that they can get to, very likely to eat your fish at night as well, there are several native species in FL, not sure if that is one of them or not because they all have similar color and habits. the other bad thing about them is they are very strongly nocternal and bury themselves during the day so you never see it, just the destruction they leave. If you have a agressive FOWLR they can be an effective scavenger.

 

[treesmoker]

at one of the lfs in my neck o tha woods got one in last week. they said it was a harlequin crab.....definately not reef safe being a true crab.

 

[pinkcbr95]

He was gone when I went to Aqualife on Sunday...

 

[spags315]

otherwise known as a calico crab. and as many will say all aquariums are different. althoe they say he's not reef safe but not because he eats the corals but he tramples them. lol I've had one in my aquarium for aprox 6 months and he hasn't bothered squat.. i feed him shrimp cocktail twice weekly. great to watch at night when you put your blood moon lights on. he's very active at night,

 

[MMA]

Man this is an old post. I was getting ready to go to Aqua Life to check this out.

 

[Merz300ce2]

I just bought one of these guys from one of my local stores. Cost me $15 &#55357;&#56835;, really very cool looking crab. If you watch it eat, it's pretty interesting too. They do not like much light at all, I had him upstairs in my Coffee table tank. He didn't like it at all, matter fact he played dead. I decided to move him to my down stairs tank, I put him in my Sump, and the thing changed like night and day. Moves around the sump a lot, takes food off of the tongs. I would not put these in with fish,as they told me it will eat anything it gets its little claws on. From my understanding they are still fairly new in the hobby, so you may not see many of them out there. The colors are what drew me to him/her, very pretty crabs...