emerald crabs

[salty55]

i was thinking of buying a few emerald crabs but wanted to do a little more research. i was wondering what everyones experience was with them. good? or bad? i have heard that they are reef safe-ish. does this mean they may eat coral?

 

[trainfever]

They are reef safe, they eat algae. I never heard of them eating corals.

 

[Jaymann]

yeah I was wondering the same thing.. I would love to have one..

are they ok with shrimp?

 

[salty55]

that's one of the other things i was wondering trainfever. i have a skunk cleaner shrimp and i would hate for him to get eaten by a two dollar crab!

 

[salty55]

also, does anyone know how big they will get? thanks in advance for all the info.

 

[trainfever]

The only thing they will bother is your algae and waste floating on the bottom. They wont bother your shrimp

 

[kramleigh]

I have an emerald crab with two cleaners. Doesn't take any notice of them. Doesn't touch my corals either. They tend to hide a lot during the day, but I'd definately recommend getting one - they do a great job!!

Just reminded me now actually, I had a hair algae prob on my sand bed. When I first let him go in the tank, he dropped to the sand bed and started eating big clumps of hair algae within 2 seconds at the most - GREAT!

 

[Paintbug]

i have seen emeralds damage corals. but not bad enough to kill the coral. i dont usually recommend putting more than 1 per 25g or so of water. you may get away with 2 females in the same 25g though. just make sure the crabs are fed, and you shouldnt have any problems with them. i ended up feeding my emeralds small pieces of algae sheet about every other day. it keeps them from hunting their next meal so much. they dont normally attack anything alive, but if something is dieing they will finish it off.

size wise males are much bigger than females. my male was about 4" from tip to tip with the claws stretched out. my females where about 2 1/2" tip to tip.

need to know how to tell males from females?
http://www.paintbugsreef.com/crabs.htm

 

[Lpabsolute]

They are reef safe. Most people use them to eat algae. If you don't have algae for them in the tank to eat sometimes they might pick at some corals. This is why most people dont' like them. If you get them small they are better at not messing with corals, but it really depends on the crab's personality. I've had success using them. After they take eat all the algae in the tank take them out. Easy enough....Good Luck