Is this common with a PomPom crab?

[SLove1104]

I bought a PomPom about 3 weeks ago and he was missing one PomPom... I figured he'd split that one and eventually end up with two eventually...

Weeeell... A few days ago, I'd found that he had found a mini carpet anemone would be even better than his tiny little pompom and has picked it up... lol... I'd gotten that mini nem as a freebie on a frag a couple weeks ago and it had decided to settle a bit under the sand for a few days, apparently until the crab found it...

Is this common? And is this a problem in my reef? I don't want the crab going around stinging my corals, but then again, he rarely comes out of the rocks. He likes to stay in the back area of the tank away from my corals anyway... My corals seem to be doing fine, no probs so far... I just wanna make sure he's not gonna go around attacking my corals with his newfound super duper lethal weapon...

 

[LeslieH]

I bet that's one cute crab. Normally they use the anemones to sweep the bottom & pick up debris for food and for defense. I haven't heard of them using the anemones to attack corals. Has anyone seen this kind of aggressive behavior?

 

[SLove1104]

Ya, I didn't really mean attack... Was just being funny there... lol. I really just meant that since the crab moves around a lot more than the mini nem normally would, there may be a bigger chance of the nem rubbing up on my corals. Normally the nems just kinda find a place and stay put but with it now being attached to the crab it's travelling all over the tank with him... Not sure how big of a sting they pack so that's why the concern for the corals... I did actually accidentally get the mini nem stuck on my finger when I picked up the frag he was on and I didn't know he was there... Didn't sting me, but he's one sticky mofo... I kinda freaked out a bit since I didn't notice he was there and it took me a minute to get it off my finger... lol.

 

[LeslieH]

If you had it on your finger & it didn't hurt it probably won't bother the corals either.