Good Crab/Bad Crab

[bgreenlee]

Could someone tell me if this crab is desireable in a reef tank.

He seems to be messing with my yellow polyps a lot and has eaten some small form of life that was growing on the end of the rock he is standing on in the picture.

Thanks.

 

[crzy4reefs]

since he's gone predatory (sp) i would remove him, is it a blue legg, can't tell from the picture. they are iffy since they will eat just about anything, and can be awful if they develope a tast for certain things.

 

[bgreenlee]

He was supposed to be a blue leg, he dont look like the rest of them though, and he has grown much faster then the rest of them as well.

Would I be better off with a different type of crab for clean up?

 

[bertoni]

Lots of people keep hermit crabs and think they're okay. I got rid of all of mine because I got tired of the predation. Your call.

 

[KRP]

I did the same as bertoni and got rid of mine also. I couldn't keep any snails because the blue leg hermits would kill them.

 

[cw150]

I have many blue leg hermits and they don't eat anything but detritus, algae, or loose food. I think people catch them scraping corraline and assume they're eating something when they're actually not. IMO they are far less predatory than, say, mithrax.

 

[avshockey311]

My blue legs got my whole rock of yellow polyps in one night. Brought them home from the LFS, acclimated, placed in tank. No crabs were seen around them before I went to bed and then there was a couple on the rock the next morning and there were only a couple polyps left. After the rest of the crabs die off, I vowed never to get any more.

 

[Steelslinger75]

Do you have a sump/fuge? I place all my crabs with attitudes down in the sump.

 

[bgreenlee]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6616266#post6616266 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Steelslinger75
Do you have a sump/fuge? I place all my crabs with attitudes down in the sump.

I will have it set up this week, I am going from a wet dry to a sump/fuge. I am just waiting on my protein skimmer to come in and then will set it all up.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

One note on the crab, now a resident of the unhappy damsel tank, is that one of his claws has grown quite large. The claw is half black/white.

 

[Steelslinger75]

Can you post another picture?