Emerald Crab Concern

Mitch529

New member
I have a smaller female emerald crab in my 24gal, I recently added a Randalls goby who is a good bit bigger than the crab so I wasn't really worried nor had the thought even crossed my mind. BUT are emeralds known to attack fish at all? I became worried after an incident the other day where one of my nassarius snails kept pestering the crab during feeding time and the crab went superman(woman?) on the snail, grabbed it and lifted it tossing aside.

Just wondering if I should evict the crab, since shes never caused any other trouble...

Mitch
 
Most people in the know, consider emeralds to be a gamble in the aquarium. They are opportunistic hunters and anything they can catch is fair game (for most individuals)
 
it should be fine as long as there is proper algae or other food for them to eat. i have an emerald crab that has never touched my fish including two small dwarf gobies that are less than an inch long.
 
There should be plenty of algae for it to eat and it runs around after food sometimes when I feed. Should I be feeding it anything specific?
 
The aggression depends on the individual; generally smaller and younger crabs are less prone to becoming aggressive. Also, its important not to feed them any meaty items as they can develop a taste for it.

Fish and other meaty things aren't naturally on the emeralds menu, although its very common for them to attack fish and inverts if they start to associate them with a meal, even if they are well fed.

Personally, I would avoid any large emerald, as the case is with almost every other "reef safe" crab... >1" at the carapace is a liability with emeralds IMO.
 
i have 5 small emerald crabs in my 8g biocube and they never bother anything, they hang out in or on the live rock eating constantly.
 
I have had problems with them eating my zoos when theres algae growing right beside the lil buggers.
I would have to intervein with them and move them off but in the morning I would find more zoos missing or severly damaged finally gave them to a friend.
 
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