Picture of SPS eating crab?!?!

[jugger]

i havent been able to catch this little guy
<img src='http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-3/676355/crab.jpg' width=800 height=600 >

every morning i look into the tank to find 4 inch slimer frags drug into the small cave this crab lives in... the end of the frag is usually white and the tissue is all gone.....is it possible this crab is eating the slimmer??? are there such things as acro eating crabs???
the crab has been in the tank for 3 months and i not sure why he is still alive or what he is eating because i dont feed anything to that tank beacuse there are no fish in it.

 

[Sparkss]

that is a predatory crab. There are crabs that eat acros, but they are usually smaller and host in the acro that they are dining on. This one most likely just got hungry and went after whatever it could. If you even plan to put fish in there make sure to take him out first....

 

[mikeguerrero]

Sparkss is right,

I noticed a small crab, really small in one of my acros and I dismissed it as a good host crab as I have others in my acros that are good.

But this one was different, he had a hairy body and his tips on his claw were black; but what really gave this guy away was his constant pinching the stem of the acro.

I quickly pulled out the acro, got him out and fed him to my Haddoni carpet anemone and that was that.

I noticed days later the acro started to blossom more than before.

Mike G

 

[jugger]

thats for the replys

this guy is sort of hairy, about the size of a quarter and seriously strong...the first time i noticed the slimmer frag sticking out of his cave i grabbed a hold of it and tried pulling it out....i was amazed at the resistance so i pulled harder...finnally he let go and my arm surged backward towards the front of the tank and splashed water all over me....well he cant be any good for the tank so ill work on getting him out

 

[mikeguerrero]

Jugger,

Get rid of this guy quickly, he is very bad news and will cost you expensive damage as he starts to place your corals on his dinning menu.

There are many threads on this board and others that illustrate very well how to capture these guys and erradicate their destructive nature.

 

[pbrpinky]

I don't know anything about the crab you have, but I am still laughing at this...

"...finnally he let go and my arm surged backward towards the front of the tank and splashed water all over me...."

tug of war with a crab! :lol:

I'm sorry for making light of your situation, but that was just too funny. You brightened my day. Thanks :strooper:

 

[clkwrk]

I have one of those exact guys in my 90g softie lps tank. He has been in the tank for a few years and only goes ofter zoantids on ocassion or nips a frag of my leather.

Very elusive I only see mine at night and I know where is home is . I have even tried stabbing him with a steak knief whit no luck .

 

[jugger]

Ill have to search the boards on how to catch himââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦(havenââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t pay for the premium membership though)

No problem what so everââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦. I found myself cursing and then laughing after it happened

Hes always in the same little cave hanging outââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦.when ever I see him I take a plastic rod and stab him but theres no way ill ever puncture his shell with itââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦.sometimes he even grabs on to the rod and wont let goââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦.im seriously surprised at how strong he is

 

[Jovreefer]

take a coke bottle and put a piece of shrimp or krill inside it...that should catch him, just be quick about getting it out of the tank before he figures out how to get out of the bottle.

I had one like that a LONG time ago...I poked it with a sharp metal kabob skewer and could not penetrate the shell.

 

[jugger]

thanks jov

i was thinking of that but ill have to make the hole larger in the bottle.....maybe ill buy a octopus to eat him...jk

 

[mikeguerrero]

Jugger,

I owned a 80 reef tank that had an evil hairy crab that was killing my fish at night and I could never catch him

I also owned a 20 gallon tank that exclusively held ogi, my mini octopus.

Well, one day I just couldn't stand it any longer and I dropped him in my reef tank and within the hour he went hunting and yanked him out of the hole and had sushi.

It was great, then I removed him from my tank very easy with a clear container and some mussel as bait.

I'll never forget that day; the riding of a pest with mother nature at my side.

 

[Brandon's Reef]

I dont know if it matters but depending on the size it might be a stone crab

 

[Carman34L]

its one ugly bastard whatever he is.... Try getting a 5 mil hyperdermic needle fill it with vinager/kalk mixture and inject it in it mouth area if you can. that is where you will find it easiest to punture his shell, I had a really nasty crab and that worked for me.

 

[MinuteJohn]

Here is a link to Calfo's thread on how to catch just about anything. There's a couple of crab catching tricks if you read through his posts. Good luck

 

[jugger]

Wow I was kind of kidding when I said that about the octopus but thatââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s good to hearââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦.i wonder how a octopus would do in a SPS only tank? Iv always wanted oneââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦..anyone know if an octopus would like a very high water flow and light environment? I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t plan on ever keeping any fish in the tankââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦or would the octopus dirty up the water too much for the SPS??

any info on stone crabs? Is it in their nature to eat acros?

I like that idea with the syringeââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦or I could go out on the street, find a junky, score some smack and OD the little guy

 

[mikeguerrero]

Jugger,

In the wild they don't like high light but mine didn't mine and he would explore during the day, for crabs.

As they get caught and exposed to light they adjust I guess acclimate to the new surroundings.

I didn't have SPS back then but he went in with fish and soft corals, he never bothered my fish not even at night when they slept.

His diet was live crabs which I use to catch every weekend for free at the Berkeley Marina in California.

I would feed him one small crab a week and he was very very happy.

They have very short lives and mine died after 8 months and he really never got large, very small.

They have the greatest personalities in the reef tank far superior to any fish.

I had friends keep them in a all display reef with no inverts and mixed corals.

Mine never inked at all.... I guess it's how they are treated at an LFS prior to purchasing, mine was very inquisitive and liked people so he went home with me.

I named him ogi.....

Hope that helps out...

Mike

 

[msman825]

Tie a rope on him, pull him out and shot him with shoot gun??

 

[Flipturn88]

I couldn't figure out why a few of my SPS in one specific region of my tank were going downhill, until my boyfriend and I spotted this guy roaming around one night...

Needless to say, upon discovering his "lair," we found scraps of all my unhappy corals inside. Here's a pic of one of the unhappy corals:

He was too big to live in the corals themselves, but still enjoyed a midnight snack of them until he was caught. His fate? Trigger food.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Hi Kayla,

I too became perplexed when certain acros began to go downhill. I was seeing that certain branches were bleaching for no apparant reason; water conditions are really good.

I let the week go by and then I noticed a small movement on the branch that the bleaching was becomming apparent; at closer observation I found a very small baby hairy crab with small pinchers.

I had found one of these guy two weeks ago on another acro and I had fed him to my new blue carpet baby anemone; so I pulled out this acro got the mini crab and fed him to my carpet.

This time I photographed the damage on the acro and then a picture of him so other SPS owners can identify these evil crabs and erradicate them.

Mike.

P.S
Since the erradication of the last hairy crab that was much larger than this little guy, my Acro is healing really well and tissue is growing over the bleached part.