Emerald Crab

[SMSREEF]

This was my favorite guy in the tank until tonight. I got home and lights were off.

I turned the lights on and don't see anything wrong with the coral.
This is the highest place in the tank, could he have been doing some sort of filter feeding? Or maybe there is tiny algae that he was eating?

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[Chuckd76]

Maybe it's a female. If so could be releasing eggs.

 

[minus9]

The smaller ones are usually safe, but there's no guarantee that they'll remain reef safe. I recently found a larger emerald taking chunks of flesh from my m. setosa, so back to the store he went.

 

[civics14]

i have the same experience, the small ones are fine, but the larger they get, the more they venture into eating coral. caught my large one taking a chunk off the tip of an acro, straight to the sump he went

 

[sixpackgarage]

Mine is in the sump.. started pulling polyps off my stylo and also irritated the living crap out of it when it wasn't trying to eat polyps.

 

[SMSREEF]

Thank you all for the feedback. I think I figured out what he was doing. I never dipped the corals I bought and this one was cheap so I picked it up. I figured the lower part would grow in. Today after reading on RC, I figured out a tiny snail was in there eating it and got it out. I went to my LFS and they said the emerald crab may be attracted to dying tissue and the coral may be dying. I told them about the snail and they said I should always dip the corals before putting them in my tank. I bought Revive and came home to dip it. I saw a tiny white worm that peaked out from inside. I yanked the coral out and dipped it for 5 minutes. At least 2 things came out of it. No real clue what they were. Thank goodness I am starting small with a nano to figure this stuff out.
Thank you emerald crab for bringing my attention to this and thank you to Markalot and his thread Mark's 150 gallon. I may have caught this before it was a much bigger issue affecting everything in the tank. I hope so at least.