Crab Mystery Needs Solving.

[1234-fishy-freind]

I have just found 2 crabs claws in my tank!
They just appeard from no where about 30 mins ago, the lights have been off for about 45 mins.
They were found in some new LR that i got yesterday, a 4kg piece with huge holes in it. Where they were found, it seems something has dug a little hole so it can get from the rock into the tank.
Here are some pics of the claws found and i would really appreceate any comments on where they could have come from, and what crab.




please help...

 

[Lynden]

They could be shed claws. Is there still a large amount of meat in them?

 

[chrissaysyes]

Am I correct in saying that the claws are those of a carnivore?

 

[steelhealr]

The key is to look up the most common crab hitchhikers and see if you can ID them. Gorilla and porcelain crabs are common. SH

 

[1234-fishy-freind]

There is a bit of meat left in them, and i cant squash it in my fingers.

I did se the crab this morning though, it was about 2-2.5 inches from what i could see. It was brown and had orange eyes.

 

[chrissaysyes]

and no claws?

 

[1234-fishy-freind]

Well we got it out, unfortunatly we got it out dead. We had to use some pliars to grab it and pull it out, it must have died from not having the fromt claws, which it didnt have.

 

[1entra]

Something else may have ripped it's claws off so you may well have another crab, possibly bigger, in your tank!

 

[chrissaysyes]

Yessir, unless you have a nice big invertebrate loving fish you havnt told us about

 

[1234-fishy-freind]

Well the bigger crab is a possibility...and so it the crab eating fish. The place i get most of my LR from he has a small morray eel in his sump that swims in the LR he keeps in there and when i buy some LR from the tank he puts it in the sump while he weighs another piece so could it have gone into the rock and survived a 4 min journey to my house ?

 

[chrissaysyes]

That could easily have been what happened, or various other things...Is this in the new tank?

 

[1234-fishy-freind]

Yeah its the new one.

 

[chrissaysyes]

could have just died because of the cycle

 

[1entra]

Moray eels can are known to eat chrimp and crabs as such that a lot of fish shops keep them in their LR tanks so they can rid the LR of any pests!

Maybe the moray had ripped the claws off the crab but it managed to escape into a piece of LR in time not to get eaten but died shortly after with the claws also being left in the LR and the current in your tank pusihing them out to where you found them!

Or you may have a bigger predator in the tank...

 

[chrissaysyes]

I dunno theres not a lot of rock in there, it would be hard to hide a big predator in there.