crab eating my mille!!!???

[Raska23]

I think my millepora is being destroyed/eaten by this crab:

Does anyone recognize this little guy. He is about the size of my fingernail. Was on the coral when I purchased from LFS and I soon noticed polypless areas on the millepora. He never strayed from this coral, making me initially think he was commensal/beneficial. Anyways I think I will terminate him shortly unless anyone thinks he is not bad...

thanks in advance

 

[Rurouni Kenshin]

Thats a bad one. Throw him in the sump!

 

[jjackson]

Gorilla Crab take him out of your display... put it in your sump if you want to keep it... they are bad

 

[damienkee]

:eek1:

hairy crab.... destroy!!!!!

 

[Gundo5000]

I had one distroy a couple sps frags. Bastards!

 

[Raska23]

We dumped him into the refugium where we have a huge clump of chaetomorpha algae and copopods. We just found a tiny baby brittle star on the bottom of the clump. Will the stupid crab eat our baby brittle star???? I convinced the Hubster to keep it, but if it threatens the baby brittle star, he's goin' down....the toilet bowl!

 

[SPSFiend]

KILL IT OR SUMP IT BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!

HERE'S ONE THAT ESCAPED BEING SPOTTED!!

 

[SPSFiend]

here's a pic of his buddies that I caught earlier. The white one is supposed to be okay but I did not take any chances. I caught the pink/red one's picking at my acro so they were dealt with.



http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/108878Crabs-med.jpg

 

[Justin/TiV]

a couple of those red ones that are smooth are harmless...they aren't eating your polyps, they are cleaning off the coral...and will defend the colony if anything tries to eat it

 

[Pyrrhus]

yup, the red and white smooth crabs are commensal. The crab in spsfiends pic in this thread is a mithrax (emerald) crab of some sort, look at the claws. see the cups at the end, they are for eating algae. Gorilla crabs have claws for tearing into things and are shaped differently.

The OP's pic is definitely destructive.

 

[izzypop]

teddybear crab. take it out not worth the chance.

 

[menard]

Hairy,looks creepy= Nasty out you go

 

[Jay4Robin]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7106835#post7106835 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SPSFiend
KILL IT OR SUMP IT BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!

HERE'S ONE THAT ESCAPED BEING SPOTTED!!

Wow MR Miagi. I am ready I caught the crab with chop sticks.xoxoxo signed Danielson

 

[impur]

Had the same crab in my mille.

Here is the damage, ripped out all the polyps and started eating the flesh

Here is the bugger

 

[DaddyJax]

Find someone with a zebra eel and serve him as a snack!

 

[Raska23]

impur, the damage you show to your mille is similar to what was done to mine. It is recovering since I removed the bastard, but only flesh has returned, no polyps in those areas yet.

BTW, your crab looks pretty much identical to mine.

Have your polyps recovered???
thanks

 

[impur]

It took about a week-10days for the polyps to come back. The coral is fine now.

 

[JB NY]

IME the coral will always recover once those crabs are found and removed.