SPS Crabs where did you go?!

[MammothReefer]

What happened to all the sps crabs, before I left the hobby (2 years ago) It seems that is was pretty common to get sps crabs in your wild/maricultured pieces. Since I've gotten back in, I spend way to much time looking at sps online to purchase, I have yet to see a single crab in any piece available online for sale.

Am I the only one who noticed this change? Not all hitchhikers are bad!

 

[fcmatt]

I also noticed this. Perhaps dipping of corals is becoming more common and are killing/injuring
the crabs?

 

[562socal]

i believe more lfs and vendors online are getting into aquacultured sps nowadays. i remember 3 years ago, my lfs had at least 20+ in different sps colonies he had, now, only a few.

 

[ClownNut]

sometime liveaquaria have them for sale.

 

[MammothReefer]

Ya I've seen that. It's been making me wonder if some vendors are picking them out, or wholesalers (ie qm which is la) and selling them on there own.

 

[scrapz]

Ya I've seen that. It's been making me wonder if some vendors are picking them out, or wholesalers (ie qm which is la) and selling them on there own.

i believe so. DFS sells them separately and I heard form a buddy wholesalers are selling them also

 

[jimroth]

I think it's dipping either at the retail or wholesale level. I have been a fan of this kind of "bycatch" for years, and you rarely see them anymore. More in pocillopora for some reason. A couple of years back, a store I go to had a medium acro head that had 4 acro crabs and a squat lobster!

 

[unbreakable]

Sorry to get off topic, but can multiple acro crabs live in a colony? What if they're different? I have had a small white acro crab for some time now and wanted to add another one that was different from the one I have now. I'm not sure if they'll compete for food or territory

 

[Gogeees]

I just picked out a white and purple acro from PAF and it came with a matching colored crab on October Sixth. I saw several of the crabs on some of the nice wild pieces. The one I got is a cultured plug and I didn't notice the crab until I was viewing my tank at night.

 

[MammothReefer]

good to know, i'll be poking my head down at paf for ole timey sakes at the end of the month

 

[prospectclmt]

I found a hitchhiker on my wild caught piece.

 

[Whisperer]

I have at least 3 in my corals. I find them on different corals everyday. They wander at night, I guess. You can still get them as hitchhikers on some corals from the wild caught SPS in the DD.

 

[kduen]

They can still be found but you have to look very carefully. Divers Den SPS section.

 

[MammothReefer]

ha good eye!