Emeralds Are The Devil

jml1149

New member
That is all. I read all the warnings, said it will never happen to me. Bought two emeralds and they now both have taken solid swipes at my LPS. Never again will I willingly put ANY crab in my tank. These two are headed to the sump / fuge. Never will I ever. Any. Crab. And I still have plenty of BA to pull out.
 
You got off lucky! One of my emeralds went rogue and killed one of my blue spotted jawfish. I was not happy.
 
Mine killed one of my very expensive frostbite clowns and than the other starved to death because they were a wild caught pair, I will never own another emerald crab
 
I had one eat two different Royal Gramma's and he lives in the sump now. The ONLY crab of any kind that is good in a DT is a scarlet legged hermit they're the only ones I will allow in my tank. All of the others are murderous bastards :hammer:
 
Wow.... I am soo glad I read this post. I just picked up 2 Emerald Crabs to combat my BA problem. Luckily they are currently in my QT by themselves.

Besides manual removal, any other recommendations to combat BA? I can see some BA in the crevices of my LR that a bubble agae eating fish cannot get to.

I was thinking on buying a Foxface, but I know there are a few different kinds. Is any one species like the Foxface Lo, recommended over another?
 
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i had an emerald crab in my 75 gallon for about 3 years and nothing happened. Then again, my tank was pretty baron. Just two clown fish, a yellow tank and a cleaner shrimp. truth be told it would ttake a few hours to find him, if i ever found him at all. I have recently started this hobby again, but this time with just a nano in my office. After reading this, I dont think i will get an emerald crab. How about blue legged hermit crab (really tiny one).
 
I've also had multiple emerald crabs and never had an issue with them bothering fish. Great refugium cleaners too.
 
i had an emerald crab in my 75 gallon for about 3 years and nothing happened. Then again, my tank was pretty baron. Just two clown fish, a yellow tank and a cleaner shrimp. truth be told it would ttake a few hours to find him, if i ever found him at all. I have recently started this hobby again, but this time with just a nano in my office. After reading this, I dont think i will get an emerald crab. How about blue legged hermit crab (really tiny one).

Blue legged hermits are murderous bastards :hammer: They'll kill each other and snails just for sport :uzi:

Get scarlet legged hermits, great cleaners and will not kill anything. They're the ONLY crab of any kind that is allowed in my DT. :beer:
 
I had 2 emeralds in my new cube. One I transferred from my little biocube and he was awesome. I'd watch him eat hair and bubble algae all day so I figured i'd buy another one. The next one I got was banished to the sump almost immediately. Caught him going to town on a purple stylo. I'm going to assume they are like fish, some are model citizens while some are awful.
 
Yeah, blue legs are the worst, especially as they get a little bigger. Mine started taking down turbos before i removed him.
 
I have been battling bubble algae for a while now and because i have a nano tank the emerald crab was out of the question. i think i've got the BA beat, i still have it but the production is significantly reduced and should steadily keep reducing.

ATS, algae turf scrubber...i build it for less than $5 and it has already cleaned up my sump and showing significnat impact on BA production.

I have tried GFO for over a year, that stuff doesn't seem to do anything, even when i run high amounts of it and change it often...my sps seem to be happier without the GFO in fact.

So try the algae scrubber, there are plenty of YouTube vids out there on DIY scrubbers and so far it works like a champ.
 
for the sake of a non-biased, two sided conversation, I have had an emerald crab for going on 8 months now and he has been a model citizen in my reef, never touches old or new corals, leaves all the fish alone. I wouldn't know he was in there if I didn't notice him once every week or so just picking away at something on the rock.

On the other hand, I had 8 blue-legged hermits that were awesome for about two months, then out of nowhere just turned into murderous thugs. They all ganged up and killed all 8 various different snails and my conch. All within about a week. It was dramatic, and crazy.

I also have a peppermint shrimp who has been awesome for about 8 months and just now started picking at a frogspawn I just put in there last week. I thump the glass and try to scare him as bad as I can every time I see him near it, and I think I am getting through to him.
 
I had to remove mine as well, he was medium sized, but I would see him snap his claws at smaller fish. This one time I seen him actually somewhat clamp onto my mandarin, that was it...he's doing a life sentence in the sump.
 
for the sake of a non-biased, two sided conversation, I have had an emerald crab for going on 8 months now and he has been a model citizen in my reef, never touches old or new corals, leaves all the fish alone. I wouldn't know he was in there if I didn't notice him once every week or so just picking away at something on the rock.

On the other hand, I had 8 blue-legged hermits that were awesome for about two months, then out of nowhere just turned into murderous thugs. They all ganged up and killed all 8 various different snails and my conch. All within about a week. It was dramatic, and crazy.

I also have a peppermint shrimp who has been awesome for about 8 months and just now started picking at a frogspawn I just put in there last week. I thump the glass and try to scare him as bad as I can every time I see him near it, and I think I am getting through to him.

You probably got a female... Not as bad
 
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