Crab Id? Gorilla Crab?

S

skeeters

New member
Found this guy in my green start polyps a few months ago. He hasn't bothered any corals or fish but I finally got him out.

Can you guys id? I have a Biocube 29 so I'm not sure If i can banish to the sump. Maybe I could put in the first chamber or third, but not sure if he could get back in.

mrcoral004.jpg

mrcoral003.jpg

mrcoral005.jpg
 
Looks like one to me. When small they tend to be pretty innocuous but as they get larger, they start taking out hermits and snails and eventually fish. Banish it to the sump.
 
Hm, not clear to see. It looks lika Cymo sp. to me, which are coral associated crabs which shall not be beneficial for the corals. But it may well live in the sump if you feed from time to time.
 
Very interesting to me, i had found the exact looking crab in my green star polyps and left him there had it for several years and from time to time would spy on the crab at night. Never did catch him doing anything bad nor did i ever find shells or anything by his cave that was in the middle of the polyp rock. The crab never did get much bigger than when i first found him. I should also note that the crab was never seen off the star polyp rock. Now for a gorrilla crab i also had found one of those in my tank, he destroyed anything he could get his hands on such as Coral, hermits, snails. I personally do not think what you have is a gorilla crab, it just does not have the bulky boxy appearance to me.
But even still if you want to be perfectly safe i guess toss him in the sump.
 
I don't know what shall be a gorilla crab. And the same term in German again means a very different crab. When I search the net for that term I get many (!) species of crabs. That's why I tend to scientific names instead of vernacular. Nearly every crab is nocturnal primarily. But many also come out during the day, they are not strictly (!) nocturnal.
 
32mm32:
I had recently bought a small piece of live rock with mushrooms and a very small piece of green star polyps on it. Just the other day I noticed a small crab, very similar to the pictured crab, that lives in a creavase that is covered by a large mushroom. Although I have not seen the entire crab, what I have seen of him looks very similar to the crab pictured in this thread. I just found it odd that you had mentioned a crab living close to your green star polyps and I seem to have the same thing.
 
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/reefs/guamimg/crustacea/xanthidae/Pages/Image43.html

I've had 2 of these, one small - .5 inch diam. caprice, the other large - 1.5 diam caprice.

These are aggressive crabs IME. The small crab i am sure picked food from some of my LPS and he wasn't gentle, and he ate some of my juv. abalone.

The large one was even more aggressive, but less successful. It stayed in an small area and would stick its legs out when a fish swam by, when i probed close to him (low fear), and when i put my face close to his area -concerning. The tips of all its legs were very sharp. It seemed to be an ambush type predator.

Just some anecdotal info...
 
Hey Beastie :)

I really think this is the species. When in water one might see the hairs/bristles just above the face are slightly longer than the rest.

Yes exactly. In contrast to the other crabs in my tank, it would extend its needle sharp legs rather than its claws when it sensed close water movement (increased abality with all its bristles) and/or visual change. Ofcourse i experiemented with spot feeding, and this crab was certainly a fearless and fast striker, attempting to quickly catch and bundle its prey towards itself using legs and/ and then claws.

IMO when this crab becomes comparable size to any fish its a concern. I think you have done the right thing expelling it from the DT.
 
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