This is really FREAKY!

Snookie

New member
Hi my buddies---Snookie making his monthly (or even less frequent) stop. I have something really freaky to report. I was feeding today and a movement caught my eye. When I looked closer, I could not believe what I saw! :eek: There, blending in with the sand and rock was a HUGE crab. :eek: This tank has been up and running since 2/04 and I have never seen him before. This explains why an occasional fish goes MIA for no apparent reason and with no warning. :mad: Legs, claws and all, this dude is the size of my palm. Not sure if he just hitchhiked in or is part of the old cleanup crew on crack and steroids. I have to get him out of there. I hate to kill him but I don’t see any alternative unless somebody wants him. Mo, how about the school tank---you’re always looking for donations. :rolleyes:
Anyone recognize the species?


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Yikes. I know how you feel..my girlfriend asked me about this big crab she saw...I thought she was talking about one of my little mythrax crabs...but it was a beast..a little smaller than yours.

I'm still having a hard time getting a good look at mine to see if the claws are jagged. He hides well.

How are you planning on getting him out? Mine will probably have to stay until I move this fall/winter and rebuild the tank.

--Fizz
 
He seems pretty camera shy but I'm hoping maybe I can entice him with a piece of shrimp and some kind of homemade trap. :(
 
Hey Mo! That might be the guy but I don't think mine is quite as hairy (perhaps just a subspecies?). I guess I just don't trust any crab that big---do you think he's OK? Who needs a cleanup crew with that monster running around in there at night? He was quite a surprise. I only slept 2 hours the night before and thought maybe I was seeing things! :eek1:
 
I caught one of those buggers a couple of years ago. He was stockpiling snailshells under a rock overhang after he'd gutted them. After I caught him, I was stunned at how many snails he'd done in. I caught this one by sneaking up on him from over the top of the rock overhang and grabbed him with a pair of long hooked tweezers.

I caught a couple more with a slightly diferent technique. About an hour before the main lighting went off, and the actnics kicked in I would rubber band a silverside to the bottom of a flat piece of rock about the size of my palm. By about an hour or so after the actinics were on, I just lifted the rock, and there they were just hanging on for dear life. The biggest, the same as the one in the pics is still a sump dweller.
 
From the research I had done, the crabs you need to worry about the most are the ones with claws with jagged edges. That supposedly indicates a carnivore. Some crabs have smooth claws except for the point which is used to pick at plant matter.

I'm certainly no expert..it's only what I've read in here...but that's why I've been trying to get a better look at mine..I actually found such a thing as a black mythrax..that might be what I have.

This was the thread I found the photo of my beast on and one of the places that somebody mentioned the serrated claw thing:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=551942&highlight=black+mythrax+crab
..near the bottom. If this is a "black mythrax"...it DOES have serrated claws...I need to see mine better!

--Fizz
 
This is so freaky! I just saw one of these in my tank for the first time a few days ago. He's hugh, and must have been in there for at least a year or two. Glad I didn't put my hand near him without knowing it! I thought I'd had my tank long enough that there weren't any unknown hitchhikers anymore.

Just goes to show that even in a closed space like a reef tank, no matter how long you stare at the glass drooling, you never see everything.
 
All my fish are accounted for. Though a few did go MIA a few months ago......hmmmmm. Everyone in the tank now is too big to eat.

The sad thing is, I probably have drool on my tank. One of my dogs sniffs it every time she sees a yellow tang. Doesn't really care about any of the other fish, just the tangs.
 
We're keeping tabs on the crab. He's kind of become the main attraction.:eek: I always wondered why I couldn't keep chromises. :( I don't plan to add any livestock until he becomes a resident of the fuge in the basement. I lost all snails and hermits. I pulled back a rock one day and found a pile of snail shells and thought there must be a murderer in there but I wrote it off because I had never seen him. He really blends in.
 
Okay, now I'm getting a little worried. I lost a chromis too. And now that I think about it, the only snails I have left are a few huge turbo snails, and the really tiny ones. I wonder if he's been snacking. He was picking at a rock the other day. Must have been an act, so I wouldn't know what he was really up to!
 
I have a similar looking crab. I will try to get a photo. He's been in a 10 gallon tank with a neon gobie and a small damsel for several months without problems.
 
I am not an expert, but it looks like a gorilla crab, which means you need to get it out of your tank immediately. I am suprised that you have not seen it before now, however they are know to take down smaller fish. I think the Tampa Bay Saltwater site has a list of hitchhikers and how to get rid of them. Good Luck.
 
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