Emerald crab bad for my sps?

[twiggyb]

I have noticed the past few nights my emerald crab has been just chillin on my sps frag (birds nest/bird of paradise?) Is this bad for the coral or will it be fine? All the polyps come out during the day and seem to be out at night as well. Should I do something about this?



the coral

the culprit, sorry, zoomed in and I used a flashlight to light the tank so not a good shot

 

[iamwrasseman]

it could pick away on the coral and do some damage .

 

[Btortorelli]

I had one...and it chopped two of my new sps frags in half...I had emerald crabs!! lol

 

[5h3rW1N]

its probably looking for some bubble algae. but if i were you i would move the coral to
a different location.

 

[saltygeek]

Mine do that once in awhile. I always get worried, but they havent done any harm yet.

 

[twiggyb]

I have a couple of little bubbles on some other things, but he's never touched the stuff and I've had it forever now. He seems to just sleep in it, but then again I'm not sure. There's no damage to the coral so it's ok right now. Should I take out the crab? I really need to just tear everything out and try to rescape as I find it really hard to place things.

 

[boodlefish]

as long as the coral isnt physically damaged you have nothing to worry about (keep an eye on it tho)

i used to have hermit crabs, the stupid things would drive me crazy-- "exploring" my sps one hermit got stuck in the middle of a b-nest colony and i had to frag the shell out. but by and large the coral was fine.

 

[MechEng99]

I kept emerald crabs for a while in various tanks with no problems. One...after a while...I guess acquired a taste for SPS. I kept finding chunks taken out of my SPS...couldn't figure out what was doing it until one day I caught the emerald crab in the act. He literally chopped a tip off...and ate it. He was immediately banned to the sump. (And no, he wasn't a gorilla crab...it was an emerald crab...who was very large and big.) He might've run out of food and got desperate enough to eat the coral instead.

If you aren't noticing damage, there might not be an issue with him...yet. Keep an eye on him. He may just be using the coral as protection.

 

[tang0v]

Emerald crab bad for my sps?

I would remove it to be on the safe side.