AtomHeart
New member
Hi guys,
Here's the tale from the start. Got a ton of marcorock for my tank, and decided to seed it with one nicely encrusted rock from the LFS. Shortly after putting in the "seed" rock I noticed a hitchhiking crab. I tried leaning a drinking glass against the seed rock with a peice of tuna at the bottom, and got nothing for 3 days. I switched to raw shrimp and for 2 days got nothing. I then constructed a crab trap out of a water bottle by cutting off the top and sticking it in upside down and threw into the bottom another raw shrimp. First day nothing, second day I caught a redish brown, furry crab.
Super! I promptly tossed him into the refugium. Then, about 1.5 months later, I noticed another crab. Little striped brown and tan one. I attempted the water bottle trap again, and got nothing for 2 days. By this time, my cycle had completed, so I was concerned about leaving the shrimp in there to rot for more than two days, so I gave up and took out the trap, figuring I'd give it another go in a few weeks. Then I see what I thougth was the corpse of the crab. I was worried about what might have killed it, but I changed my carbon, upped my skimming, and moved on with life.
Turns out, that after adding snails and hermit crabs, that was not the corpse of the hitchhiking crab after all. It was now pale white and tan in color and MUCH LARGER!!! Within an hour of adding the hermits, this bruiser charged out of the rocks to grab one and start draggin it back to his home rock. When it saw me approaching, it abandoned his attack and darted back into the rock, but I am now left with a major dilema.
I can set another crab trap, but how long can I leave it in the tank with a festering shrimp, before i cause an ammonia spike that will harm my snails and hermits? How can I keep the crab trap from now filling up with hermits before the bad crab can be enticed to go in? How do I keep all my trapped hermits from becoming a huge feast for the bad crab once it DOES go in the hermit filled crab trap?
If anyone has a sneaky solution that will catch the bad crab without killing half my hermits, and mucking up my water with rotting bait for days on end, I would be very grateful to hear it!!! I'm at a loss as to how to proceed with the extraction.
Here's the tale from the start. Got a ton of marcorock for my tank, and decided to seed it with one nicely encrusted rock from the LFS. Shortly after putting in the "seed" rock I noticed a hitchhiking crab. I tried leaning a drinking glass against the seed rock with a peice of tuna at the bottom, and got nothing for 3 days. I switched to raw shrimp and for 2 days got nothing. I then constructed a crab trap out of a water bottle by cutting off the top and sticking it in upside down and threw into the bottom another raw shrimp. First day nothing, second day I caught a redish brown, furry crab.
Super! I promptly tossed him into the refugium. Then, about 1.5 months later, I noticed another crab. Little striped brown and tan one. I attempted the water bottle trap again, and got nothing for 2 days. By this time, my cycle had completed, so I was concerned about leaving the shrimp in there to rot for more than two days, so I gave up and took out the trap, figuring I'd give it another go in a few weeks. Then I see what I thougth was the corpse of the crab. I was worried about what might have killed it, but I changed my carbon, upped my skimming, and moved on with life.
Turns out, that after adding snails and hermit crabs, that was not the corpse of the hitchhiking crab after all. It was now pale white and tan in color and MUCH LARGER!!! Within an hour of adding the hermits, this bruiser charged out of the rocks to grab one and start draggin it back to his home rock. When it saw me approaching, it abandoned his attack and darted back into the rock, but I am now left with a major dilema.
I can set another crab trap, but how long can I leave it in the tank with a festering shrimp, before i cause an ammonia spike that will harm my snails and hermits? How can I keep the crab trap from now filling up with hermits before the bad crab can be enticed to go in? How do I keep all my trapped hermits from becoming a huge feast for the bad crab once it DOES go in the hermit filled crab trap?
If anyone has a sneaky solution that will catch the bad crab without killing half my hermits, and mucking up my water with rotting bait for days on end, I would be very grateful to hear it!!! I'm at a loss as to how to proceed with the extraction.
