spider decorator crab

[Dustin Hale]

Anyone know anything about them and if they are reef safe.i would imagine so .

 

[The steven liu]

They are not reef safe. That's as much as i know.

 

[Clownfish11790]

Decorator crabs are not safe for nanos.but they can be beneficial in larger SW tanks because they attach different types of coral, plants, and etc. to their shell and will then move around the tank spreading the different types of coral to different parts of the tank. I would recommend having a reef tank with a lot of coral, so if it does move small corals it will not make that big of a difference.
_CF

 

[Javeo]

In a 60 gallon I would say not. They do grow quite large and will be destructive. Plus all the one i have seen manage to make themselves look horrid.

 

[finsurgeon]

I have had a spider decorator for most of a year. It is "reef-safe" for the purposes of not eating or killing any of the fish or inverts. It has gotten to be a pain, however, due to it's tendency to "wear" some of the more expensive pieces of soft coral and zooanthids. I have found it very interesting to see what he comes up with, and even the carnation and lemnalia don't seem directly injured by his harvest techniques, but eventually they dwindled smaller and smaller. I enjoyed watching him attaching items to his legs and shell, but after a half year the novelty wore off and I got a little tired of replenishing his wardrobe. I've now moved him to my son's fish only tank, where he has changed his decor to small rocks, gravel, and algae, and it appears the other inhabitants have no idea he's there. (He only comes out at night, but comes completely out in the open every night)

 

[The steven liu]

The bad thing about "decorating" creatures: spider crab or decorating hermit crab alike, are both annoying because they will wear anemone or aggressive corals that stings other corals or inverts.... need to really becareful with those bugs.