emerald crabs #

morgan175

New member
Well don't wan't to do hermits in my tank. I want all snails and a few emerald crabs. How many would be a decent number for my 110 gallon tank. While we are at it how many nassarius snails are a good number for my sand bed? Will the emerald crabs destroy my snail population as I have read they do not disturb them?
 
Crabs are opportunist scavengers, they will eat what they can when they have the chance. I have 2 emeralds in my 40B so i would prob go with 3 in the 110 as to give them enough to feed off and hopefully not go for the snails
 
IMO emerald crabs are only useful if you have a bubble algae problem. Once they get big, they usually become a problem (as do most crabs). Nassarius snails are outstanding sand cleaners IME. Also, get a fighting conch.
 
Emeralds crabs will get you people on both sides of the fence. My personal experience showed me that they are great if you have algae for them too eat. I started with 6 emeralds. 4 males and 2 females. After my hair algae was no more, some of the males started to go after the odd coral. I sold the 4 males and kept the 2 females. Algae is what they like most. No algae, well, then you will likely have some problems. They will not let themselves starve to death. But that is no different than hermit crabs or any other crab for that matter. I agree that the larger male emerald crabs eat alot and will be the first ones to go after your snails or corals. I never had trouble with the females. Snails are a safe bet. I don't regret getting the emeralds, they add more character to the tank. I would recommend only getting a few for your tank. That should be pretty safe for a 110 gallon tank.
 
Well i went with one for now. Just wanted a little something different in the tank for now. If he becomes mean to the bottom he will go.
 
I have 1 larger emerald in my 90... he wont touch the hair algea... but if he thinks he's hungry, he will perch on a rock and sit there claws out and extended and grab at fish.. he doesnt mess with the coral... he did however manage to grab one of my engineer gobies.. and well.. yeah... i had engineer pieces.. as soon as I get my external fuge done up, Im thinking he is going to live there...
 
Be careful if you have corals that are easily damaged. The tips of their legs are very sharp and they can inflict damage to the soft tissue of some corals. Mine effectively ripped a huge gash in my elegance coral. Needless to say the coral did not survive. One day it was fully open and doing fine and the next it was closed up and only opened enough once for me to see the extent of the damage. Wasnt much I could do at that point.
 
Had a torch coral disappear today. Now I am highly suspicious that it was emerald crabs.

If you have Peppermint shrimp, they did it. Mine shredded both my frogspawn and hammer in no time flat. And yes, they weren't camel shrimp.

My emerald crabs move so slowly I couldn't imagine one polishing a torch in one day, unless it was a really small one. That said, they did get banished to the sump once my algae problem dissipated. They seemed to like picking on my zoas, and while I couldn't tell if they were going after the polyps, or maybe some unseen algae in between the polyps, I decided not to take a chance.
 
I use to work for a LFS years ago and at least 50% of all customers who purchased emerald crabs and sally light foots ended up tearing up their aquascape just to remove them. I threw some in the display tanks and they always ended up eating the zoas. I ended up throwing a trigger in there to eat them all. A trigger is easier to remove than a hiding crab. I wouldn't risk adding emeralds but that's just me.
 
I would also never add an emerald crab again. I had 2 in my 90 gallon and they ate my fish! I saw them grab the fish right out of the water and eat them. I lost a few fish before I had to tear my whole tank apart to get them out. They are great hiders. I hate emeralds and will NEVER put one back in my tank.
 
Watched an Emerald Crab grab and eat my baby clown trigger. I was so worried about the trigger getting big enough to eat the crab,. Never even thought about the crab going after trigger. That was a very expensive meal. When I set up the new tank, it will be be a snail only CUC.
 
Well I did put one in and have not seen him in about two weeks. If he is alive then oh well if he has died then oh well. I will not add another to the tank but for a bulldozer you need to get a turbo. Wow he eats gha
 
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