Emerald crab eating SPS polyps?

[Buddhatank]

I've seen them do it but I still put them in mine. They can't all be bad

 

[Coelli]

I have a model citizen; she's small, pink, and lives in a rock. She never touches my coral... but then again she doesn't touch my bubble algae either. >.< I know she's a female because she flooded my tank with babies on New Year's Eve. Sometimes I wonder if she's an emerald at all; she hasn't grown in the 5+ months we've had her, but she's not a strawberry crab either. She looks like an emerald, she's just pinkish-purple. Cute and totally useless.

 

[ThRoewer]

I think the females are the ones that are safe while the males seem to be either less careful or actively supplementing their diets with coral tissue.
At the local store they said many people ask to get only females, which makes me think there is something to it.

 

[Lacy]

I have had some and never had a problem. I know some people are afraid to use them. I would much rather suffer the loss of some coral than see that horrendous bubble algae everywhere. Ruins a nice tank.

 

[cre8er]

I saw mine hanging out on birds nest scraping off polyps from it.

 

[ThRoewer]

The problem with my female is that she ignores the bubble algae and rather goes for all other kind of algae - at least for now. The good thing about her is that she leaves the corals alone.

 

[Lacy]

I saw mine hanging out on birds nest scraping off polyps from it.

Wow, that sucks. Looks like you have some nice clean rock.

 

[Tweaked]

Was going to say it looks like he has nothing to eat. I run 12 emeralds in my 105 and have large male and female crabs and have never seen anything but rock picking. Must be luck I guess..

 

[mwladdicted]

I've witnessed this in my tank, male EC pulling the long polyps out of the tips of my acros.... Out the window he went. I feed extremely heavy in my tank and its by no means new. I'd just rather go with a female, better safe than sorry.

 

[Reefvet]

I run 12 emeralds in my 105 and have large male and female crabs and have never seen anything but rock picking. Must be luck I guess..

I've only seen them crawl. Since you're running yours their just too tired to eat corals and stay with the softer foods like algae. :hammer:

 

[Tweaked]

Been trying the past couple nights to snag a pic of one of my giants. Keep in mind I have a dozen in a packed reef. A couple I have had for a long time. Two of them are three inches across at least. The acros in the pic are not tiny.



Love emeralds and always have. Great part of the CUC