Do emerald crabs eat sea fan worms ?

[merkurmaniac]

I got a small sea fan worm (looks like a much saller version of a coco worm, but I dunno its real name) from a friend who has a lot of them in his tank. I stuffed it in the sand in my tank, and the next morning I went to check on him. To my horror, my emerald crab was snacking on him. He had the whole thing out of the sand and was crunching it up, and busilly ingesting it. Sooo... obviously, emerald crabs DO eat sea fans,.. but was it already dead ?

Or did the emerald dig him up and kill/eat him ? If it was an accident, I'll hunt another one down and try again. If they are doomed in my tank with this crab, maybe I wont bother.

Richard

 

[merkurmaniac]

Bizarre.. I haven't seen this fan worm in about 2 weeks. I figured that he was toast. Well, guess who I saw with his fan out last night after work. ? That's right! The bro is back, and I thought that he was crab food. Looks substantially smaller. Perhaps shy, or maybe even an offspring. I'll keep looking.