New anemone crab

[Toddrtrex]

I was out at some LFS's over the weekend. The last one I stopped at had most of the snails that I wanted/needed -- it had been at least a year since I had bought new snails, so I was do. I happened to notice an anemone crab just begging for me to take home.

I ended up putting it in my 58, which has 2 Haddonis. For some reason my pink skunk pair only likes to be hosted by the blue one. So I decided to put the crab on a rock right next to the green on. Within 20 minutes it had found it and seemed pretty settled in.

Was able to get some decent pictures of it;

This shot has the closest color.

Little further back,

And now some close ups, --- the white balance is a bit off.

side shot,

Head on

 

[davocean]

Nice!
I love porcelain crabs.
That 2nd to last shot is killer!

 

[garygb]

Ah, very cool!

 

[Crustman]

Nice, can they live on the anemone with the clownfish? I see porcelain crabs frequently in benthic samples that come through our lab. Polyonyx gibbesi is the common one, Eastern tube crab. Lives in polychaete worm tubes.

 

[guilloryreef]

I have a pair of porcelain crabs living on the same carpet with my saddleback clowns. You really don't get to see them often when the clowns are loving their carpet.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Beautiful pictures Todd!! Thanks for sharing!

 

[star27624]

Very nice pictures. I love my porcelain crabs.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Thanks a lot guys. Just wish I had gotten the white balance correct.

I fed the tank last night -- Rod's food -- and it was fun watching the crab's little filter arms going like crazy catching all the food. It even turned itself 90* to have a better angle at the food.

Crustman --- really think it would depend on the clowns, I have read stories about the clowns attacking the crab, and vise versa. I might try getting another one, and putting it in another tank that has 2 haddonis, but in that tank the clowns do spend some time in the other one. So, that might be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Toddrtrex]

A bad picture, but I thought it was cool. While cleaning the tank I ticked off the green Haddoni, but that didn't stop the crab from staying put.

 

[ReefAus]

Yeah, I had a couple of these and they were great but one disappeared and the other I found obliterated one morning. They were very happy living in my BTAs, but something in my tank saw them as a great snack. To this day I'm not sure what did it, but it happened during the night with the lights out.

Steve

 

[jsharp1]

Do those types of crabs bother any corals?

 

[arioch]

Do those types of crabs bother any corals?

These are strictly filter feeders. "bother" maybe but eat no.