Help getting rid of hitchhikers!!!

[griffen24]

Wish I knew about the glass trick, I had to spear the last gorilla crab in my tank with a sharpened close hanger wire. Even that took a few attempts to final get him before he could dart under the rock work. Made a nice crunchy treat for the cat though

 

[g8gxp]

One of the crabs i caught. For reference, that black cushion is a barstool. He's the size of a silver dollar.

 

[flcoats]

The crab looks like a type of mud crab in the family Xanthidae. They are related to the tasty stone crabs, but don't get too big. They mostly eat clams, snails and other crustaceans. I am surpised they are eating your corals, however if they have taken care of all of the critters mentioned above, they probably dont have another choice. I would remove them too from my tank as they will eat all of your snails too.

 

[tipmoff]

I have to agree about the rock from TBS ... it has some of most interesting living creatures that come with it and usually is covered with good things. I purchased some Tonga rock from Coral Corral and even that had several small crabs in it. I take any LR I purchase and soak it in a low salinity tub for about an hour and shake it several times. This usually will bring out most of the little creatures that might be in it but not always. It also will not kill the good algae, sponges, ect. that is on there.

 

[g8gxp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14843094#post14843094 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by flcoats
The crab looks like a type of mud crab in the family Xanthidae. They are related to the tasty stone crabs, but don't get too big. They mostly eat clams, snails and other crustaceans. I am surpised they are eating your corals, however if they have taken care of all of the critters mentioned above, they probably dont have another choice. I would remove them too from my tank as they will eat all of your snails too.

that one was not in particular, but with his size, i didn't want to take any chances with the corals, and he was going through my astrea's quite readily. he seemed very opportunistic as i put another smaller crab in the same bucket and in the morning all evidence of the other one was gone.

 

[jnb]

consider keeping the B Worms - most find them desirable to have - perhaps loose the ones like mine circled in red and keep the yellowed circled ones