Decorator Crabs

marinereef28

New member
Recently i have become very interested in decorator crabs, but i have learned that a few varities arent the most desirable in reef setups, what are the types that are the most reef safe??? Also Id love to see some pics of crabs in actual aquariums.
 
If you're looking into a spider decorator crab, i would have to say look into something else. speaking from personal experience it is not worth the hassle. don't get me wrong it was kind of cool at first having him eat from my hand and watching him decorate himself with everything fom sand, shells,algae, sponges, and polyps. but the novelty soon wears off when it completly decimates any zoanthid colonies you may have along with any other polyps it can get ahold of. i lost all of my colonies of zoas to it. not to mention unless you watch your tank at night with the moonlights, you will never see it. most of the time i had to wait an hour or so after all lights went out just to feed it as it would not come out during feeding time. also if you have any kind of water flow in your tank you have to hand feed it because it moves so slow it cannot catch the food.

all in all i was actually releived when i found it belly up in my tank a couple of months ago.
 
Aside from the spider decorators there are definatly other varities, Ive seen arrow decorators offered online, but im a little reluctant too add one.
 
I bought some live rock a while ago and there was a decorator crab hitchhiker. I agree, they are neat and amusing to watch but they will use anything they can to decorate themselves. Mine just molted so he is now in the process "œredecorating" - Alas... I think I am to attached to get rid of him now. :rollface:

Here's what he has taken so far:

<a href="http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn57/mal7843/?action=view&current=IMG00128-20100828-1246.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn57/mal7843/IMG00128-20100828-1246.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Matt
 
Hi there,

the probably most common decorateur crab is Camposcia retusa which is a member of the family Inachidae (superfamily Majoidea). We had one of these for a few months in a small tank (50 litres) and it didn't destroy anything, didn't even pick up anything we would miss. On the other hand in this tank there were no anemones or something like this – it's a tank only for crabs. ;)

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These are three pictures of this decorateur crab over some months (more photos here: http://www.panzerwelten.de/v/Camposcia/Camposcia_retusa/?g2_highlightId=101001 ), little change in it.

It didn't harm anything else in the tank although they SHALL be predators. They do not camouflage to hide because they are "frightened" but because when they move very slowly they can creep unseen and strike!

But of course, different species behave different and every crab is an individual – so probably most decorator crabs may not be "reefsafe".

Take a look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ya3ExCqGOs – stunning video ;)
 
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