Sally Lightfoot crab, safe??

[artur]

I recently add to my tank a small sally crab (2cm body w/o legs) I have a few zoas, some xenias ricordeas a couple of lysmata cleaners and some fishes like sailfin tang, royal gramma a puple fire fish and a shrimp goby.
every website and book description about the crab says reef safe but may bother small fishes

whats the deal with this craba is it safe, how small are the fishes that are in danger with this guy?
any personal experience would be greatly apreciate

Artur

 

[Phyxius]

As with a bunch of other critters you may add its hit or miss on how it will interact with your tank.
I have had one for close to a yr and it has grown huge. In this time period I have seen it mostly in the rocks once in awhile out in the open and its been a model citizen. It doesn't bother the corals and the fish swim right by it with no issues.
There are other people that have seen these crabs take down a fish or take on the snail population and its been a bad situation in some cases.
Just keep an eye on it and get it out at the first sign of trouble if it should arise.....

 

[Guygettnby]

i have had a bunch of these and i prefer them to any other crab to clean my tanks. i have not had 1 problem with them, but like said above some people have said they killed things in there tanks. i think it also has to do with having plenty of rock work as well.

 

[jusn317]

I had one for about a year. Did fine until I noticed that it was taking out nassarius snails at night when they came out of the sand bed.

 

[cloak]

No thank you...

Cool critter, I'll give you that. What will they solve though?

 

[Eric the half-bee]

I've had 1 in my tank for 6 months and have had several small fish disappear. 3 firefish, 2 cardinals and 1 pipe. My closest LFS owner is blaming the sally. Well, now I've got to trap him.:mad2:

 

[freedominco]

I think mine took out my coral shrimp tonight and I know he took out a chromis in the past. He does a great job cleaning the sand and rocks though.

 

[artur]

I need to get this critter out now!!!

So far my firefish and my shrimp goby are missing, and missing from a 50 gal tank, with no trace, no body no nothing.

So how should I remove this thing, no attemps so far,
Anybody??

 

[Airwolf75]

Mine took down a cleaner shrimp, and went for a few fish, before he was removed.

 

[artur]

but how did you remove it??
Im thinking on building a spear with a fishing hook
kind of savage but dont see anyother option at the time

 

[jusn317]

With mine I had no luck catching it. In the end he caught himself. Found him stuck on the bottom of my megaflow and just scooped him out. Good luck.

 

[artur]

come on guys help dont want to kill the bast..r

 

[VacavilleFC3S]

start taking rocks out....

 

[Airwolf75]

I gave him an algae waffer with a pair of 10" forceps. When he took the waffer, I grabbed his claw and pulled him out