Crab living in acropora

[ezcompany]

Is this a symbiotic relationship?
The crab exclusively dwells in there. I don't see how it is symbiotic at all to the acropora other than cleaning it. The base part of the branches are white. I will post a pic tonight if I have the chance.
Should I remove the crab?

 

[rigleautomotive]

i think they do some harm.i try to get rid of them in colonies that appear bleached where the crab hangs out

 

[murphreef]

depends on the crab.... acro crabs are usually smooth and white with a black band across the face.... there are otehr kinds though....

mainly they are smooth....

the main bad ones are brown and a lil furry with blue eyes those ones have to go....

i had a bad one in my tenuis for a while it was asmall one but it ended up killin a few of the tips i seen it at night pickin away at the tip .... i got it out about 3 weeks ago and the tips have healed up nicely now

 

[ezcompany]

argh, he's the brown and furry one with blue eyes.....exact match.....

 

[ezcompany]

any suggestions on how to remove the crab?

 

[Wiskey]

Those are the bad ones, they eat the coral. Tweezers is how I remove them.

Whiskey

 

[murphreef]

yup bad one...

get him out that lil one i had in my tenuis was feastin on the tips like i said and i seen the recession occur over a 2 week period but now that hes out the tips are all better....

mine was hard to get out with tweezers i found the best way to get those crabs out was to stab them with a needle and then they just fall out.... i know it sounds bad but using tweexers can do more damage to the coral by breaking or scrapping branches

 

[ezcompany]

a needle huh.
i'll use a syringe and skewer him. i have no problems with killing crabs as of yet.

 

[murphreef]

lol then ull be good just make urself a crab skewer and ur coral will be happy

 

[rleechb]

i had one recently. I used tweezers, and ended up doing plenty of damage to the coral. Ended up crushing him with a chopstick. Poor little guy...

 

[ezcompany]

damn...i was still gonna try the tweezers first....

 

[Frankysreef]

Ice picks work good.. I had a black one that liked to scrape my acropora, and I stabbed him with the pick!

 

[acropora nut]

Get him at night with a flashlight. He will not see it coming.

 

[ezcompany]

k i went home, ided the crap, cuz i wasn't sure if it had blue eyes or not. sure enough, blue eyes, brown, very fuzzy, teddy bear crab?

pulled out tweezers, didn't budge, it grabbed my tweezers with his claw.

pulled out syringe, it grabs the needle. i push, hit the soft part (bottom shell) and push more. plunge, in it goes.

claw still moving, still fighting the needle.

stab stab stab stab stab stab stab

guts flow out, i try to pull out the remains to avoid polluting the acro, but its pretty wedged in there. tweezers would've done damage to the coral.

out comes ms. peppermint, pulls out EVERYTHING, has a nice crab meal right in front of my eyes. when she's done, remains fall on my blasto, blasto has a snack.

thank you everyone for your help, i REALLY appreciate it. hopefully i did my acropora a big favor and she'll come back in all her glory.

the end