Help on this? I think Jim Bash has this happen once...

[ostrow]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=862780

 

[menard]

Joel, any debries settled on it for the past week? Any solidified salt landed on the colony? Give the colony more flow since tabling acros. demands lot of random flow. You change bulb thats another posibility?Ones the infection advances to Brown Jelly thers no other way around it. You gonna have to frag that to pieces to save it...........PEACE

 

[ostrow]

Menard: I have a 1200+GPH MJ Stream on a Sea Swirl blowing right across it! Nothing has settled that I know of. First spotted something a couple weeks ago.

At this point it's only about a half-inch in diameter, maybe inch in diameter, in the center in the area where the crab (the one I got from you on a small frag) resides.

Do I need to frag now? It's encrusted all over the rock. Not sure how to go about that at this point.

Any idea what it is??? Is it the sort of problem that spreads?

 

[menard]

Can U be able to snap a picture of that coral and the crab? I wanna see what that crab look like. Remember when U pick that piece from me that crab is so tiny, cant tell at that time wheather good or bad crab.

 

[ostrow]

Menard, you sell me a bad crab??? The crab is and was big. The tiny one was the second one I called you about after the big one "migrated". Stripe across his head. Think you called him a "bandit" or something like that.

Pic is amost impossible but can try later today.

 

[menard]

Bandits are good crabs. This one cozing U problem ? I would not think so.

 

[ostrow]

Ok, so on the link below, the top two photos are a "new" crab I've found on a tricolor nana that shows no signs of any distress.

The bottom two show the crab on the table acro, hiding after I chased him, and the area of damage.

Can these be interpreted at all? The table acro crab is mostly white with black dots on legs and across the front of his face.

http://www.ostrows.us/crabs.html

 

[Freed]

Don't frag it just yet. Put super glue on the line of demarcation where the dead meets the live tissue. This will stop the STN/RTN. If this doesn't work, it should, then I would keep an eye on it and if it gets out of hand then frag away. The super glue should work. Make sure it's the gel.

 

[ostrow]

Thanks.

This is NOT RTN!

Whether it is STN is in doubt really.

 

[Freed]

The crab looks like a hairy one and I would remove it.

 

[menard]

Here are samples of good Acro. Crabs.

ANY CRABS doest look like this remove'em. HAIRY, JET BLK. GREEN are some of the bad ones

 

[Rod Buehler]

the little brown fuzzy guy with blue eyes in Joels first two pics will munch on the coral tissue and polyps. If the acro is large enough and the crab moves around, the damage will heal. In that case I still consider them a benificial crab, because they will still chase away some of the predatores we have been encountering (AEFWs). However, if the acro is small and the dammage is localized, and the crab doesnt move on, the coral will definately suffer from the constant munching. Moving the crab to a large head or to a trigger tank is a good option.

 

[ostrow]

trigger tank? That fuzzy one is on the small tricolor you've seen Rod, it is not a huge colony. Small but growing. I don't see clear evidence of damage. Maybe I'll leave him until I see that for sure? I tried a 5ml salifert syringe filled with boiling water. Squirted it into the hole-in-rock where I chased him. He apparently likes hot tubs...

The one munching on the table acro has to go for sure, right?

 

[ostrow]

Would a quick dip in freshwater get the offending crab to jump off?

 

[tp5056]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7544779#post7544779 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ostrow
Would a quick dip in freshwater get the offending crab to jump off?

It should work. I've swished live rock to get debris out of my tank and had an emerald crab hop out.

 

[ostrow]

Crud, well, Borneman says the hairy ones are normally fine. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-12/eb/index.php

Everyone says the smooth ones are fine. The one in the table acro is smooth with black spots in a bar pattern across his face, and black spots on his legs. That one seems clearly to be destroying the coral. Ugh this hobby. Read the title under my name...

 

[jcm1229]

My experience in acro crabs - are that the smooth ones have been fine. I have one with dotted legs, not sure about that black line on the face. It came in one a mariculture coral that did not survive. I dropped this little guy onto a purple acro and he migrated to my green mili and has spent the last 5 months happily habitating there. The green mili is as happy as can be!

I'll admit that I've never had a "hairy" acro crab, but I wouldn't chance them based on my perception of them. Since I mount my acros to rubble and not my larger LR, I could just remove the colony and "fish" them out with my long tweezers.

Good luck.

 

[ostrow]

I mount them that way too. But both the ones in question have long since encrusted onto the main rock....

 

[menard]

If U believe that crab is a BASTARD ! Remove the colony encrusted or not I will remove that, then use plastic zip ties to poke him out. Plastic zip ties works great coz of the flexibility......PEACE

 

[ostrow]

Well, I can't get this think out. would need a saw to cut the rock. Or, I'd have to completely destroy the coral. In any case, no time for that tonight, got home after 9, getting on a plane in the morning.

Fingers crossed something will be left when I get back.

Centerpiece of my darn tank. This really stinks.