My Emrald Killed my Feather dusters - Images

mmenz22779

mmenz22779

New member
Well i was wondering why my feather dusters were loosing thier heads. Yesterday i found out why. My emerald crab is eating them.

Since i need the crabs as a part of my system I guess i have to find a anouther way to keep my feather dusters out of thier way. Maybe on a ledge or something?

Any other suggestions.

Maybe Shrimp pellets that sink?
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Why are the crabs necessary to your system? 7 crabs in a 29g is going to lead to a lot of problems down the road. They are going to keep molting and getting bigger, then you might lose more that a featherduster head. I am biased, I hate emerald crabs have had nothing but problems with them killing other inverts and corals. I have three tanks and not one crab in them, except for hermits and if they were not so good at cleaning up they would be gone too.
 
I was thinking the same thing. I have the emeralds in ther to eat the left overs and such. But did not realize that maybe that was a mistake. Still learning in this hobby. If I take the crabs out what would you suggest for clean up crew to replace them.

I am trying to keep my cube as natural as i can. But may have been too gung hoe on the emeralds, maybe keep 1 or 2?

Suggestions?
 
I agree with MikeandNicole... 7 Emerald Crabs is overkill in a tank your size, and will probably give you trouble down the line.

Another thing to keep in mind is "feather dusters" will shed their "feathery head" when stressed/starved, and regrow a smaller head. The crab could just be munching on the discarded "head".

Did you actually witness the crab ripping the worm apart? Is the tube calcareous or soft?
 
I did not see the crab tear into the tube. But i did catch him on my other one trying to do somehing bad to i but the feather duster that is now missing had a longer tube than what is there now.

I am really thinking i need to get some of those emeralds out of my tank now. Live and learn,

Any suggestion on how many I can keep?

Thanks for the info on the dusters.

They are soft tube.
 
I would only keep one in a tank your size. I keep 2 in my 75 gallon reef. IME they are fine if they have enough algae to graze on, and if you supplement their diet with meaty pieces of food regularly.

My guess is that the small size of your tank, and the population of crabs you keep they are probably starving (and crabs will be crabs), so they will start eating anything they can. Since the worms have soft tubes the crabs can tear into them if desperate enough for a meal.
 
Emerald

Emerald

I don't see why everyone's having so much trouble with emerald crabs. I have been keeping these in my reef tanks since I started the hobby and they have never killed anything. The hermit crabs are what you don't want to keep because they eat snails. But unlike many on here that say they don't need them in their system I am probably just not as informed as they are because I don't know what else eats bubble algae. I have one big emerald crab in my 75 now and I just keep him properly fed. Most of the time during the night he just hangs out on my kenya tree or eats bubble algae.
 
i have both emeralds and hermits and the key is to keep them fed. If either cant find enought to scavenge, theyll move up the food chain.
 
This is going to be an issue in the OP's tank. With so many CuC these crabs will be hungry. I'd recommend getting rid of most of them.
 
Currently I feed my tank 1 frozen cube of shrimp a day after it is thawed. Is there something else i should be feeding them. With only 3 fish and 3 shrimp i thought 1 cube daily is enought for everyone.

Suggestions? I surly dont want to starve the guys, my LFS said nothing about other food so I thought what i had was ok?

I am starting to dislike LFS for more that one reason.
 
maybe removing these 5 guys will really help.

I kinda feel dumb, I was relying on my LFS for advice. you would think they would know. HA

Lesson learned note to self, dont ask fishstore ask forums
 
Roblox84 said:
I don't see why everyone's having so much trouble with emerald crabs. I have been keeping these in my reef tanks since I started the hobby and they have never killed anything. The hermit crabs are what you don't want to keep because they eat snails. But unlike many on here that say they don't need them in their system I am probably just not as informed as they are because I don't know what else eats bubble algae. I have one big emerald crab in my 75 now and I just keep him properly fed. Most of the time during the night he just hangs out on my kenya tree or eats bubble algae.
Click to expand...

That's be cause there's several Mithrax species that are almost indistinguishable but are all sold as emeralds. In the end they are ALL opportunistic omnivores.
 
mmenz22779 said:
maybe removing these 5 guys will really help.

I kinda feel dumb, I was relying on my LFS for advice. you would think they would know. HA

Lesson learned note to self, dont ask fishstore ask forums
Click to expand...

Don't feel dumb. I remember the sally lightfoot I bought about 6 or 7 years ago that must've eaten $50 worth of astrea snails. THAT was dumb.
 
Go figure I went to the LFS to get some salt water and told them about the crab eating my feather-duster. The guy told me that crabs will eat them, regardless if they are hungry or not.

you would have thought that since i bought them both at the same time (the feather duster and crabs) and I told them i just wanted to get things that wont harm each other.

Anything for a quick buck i guess.
 
upon further research (ohh and my last feather duster wiped out) it appears that crabs and feather dusters dont get along to well. Emeralds are more aggressive with them than hermits. From what I read, emeralds will whack them in half with thier big claws while hermits might pick at them to clean them but in the process they might damage it and cause the part it damaged to decay then doing its job the hermit crabs starts to eat the decaying matter, thus making a bigger hole and so on until the feather duster is gone.

I also read that shrimp may attack a feather duster.

Feather dusters export a toxin that deters fish from harming it, I Guess crabs and shrimp are anuother story.
 
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