Emerald Crabs

[drag]

how do you guys rate them.

i have a 30 gal with a bunch of astreas , ceriths, narcissus, hermits, 2 turbos, 1 CBS, 2 clowns.

thinking about geting some emerald crabs.
what do you think.. how many?

Do They Mess With Fish at all???

 

[SkiFletch]

Mine doesnt mess with my clowns. If it catches me moving around the tank it ducks under rock and hides As long as the crab is a true emerald crab and not a wrongly named gorilla crab, it should be just fine with your fish

 

[Jeff20147]

I had to start using my nemo seaweed glass clip becuase of them lol. I would put the seaweed on the rock and toss it down and he would come over almost drag the rock frag somewhere else rip off a big chunk with one hand walk away decide that was enough grabed another big chunk with the other hand and went off behind the rocks.

 

[steelhealr]

I had two. I liked them. They can become opportunistic when they get large. They can also become a pain if you have to spotfeed something in your tank....thiefs. SH

 

[drag]

I had two. I liked them. They can become opportunistic when they get large. They can also become a pain if you have to spotfeed something in your tank....thiefs. SH

sounds like they can become a hassle. i think ill stay away from them for a while thanx

 

[Jeff20147]

They are mild in comparison with our skunk cleaner. If I try to spot feed anything they steal it, same with the brittle/serpent stars.

 

[drag]

what exactly do you mean by

They can become opportunistic when they get large.

 

[Navarre]

Crabs are omnivorous and will catch anything that they can get in their claws should they be lucky enough to catch a fish.

Whilst other crabs are better equipped to catch prey (such as teddybear crabs etc). If an emerald crab was to wander by and find a sickly fish then it will try and attempt to catch it.

I had a lovely Flame angel a few years ago that was completely healthy.. One moment it was swimming around the tank andminding its own business the next moment it had tried to swim through a very narrow crack between 2 pieves of liverock.. Something startled it i guess and it got its gill spikes caught in the rocks and could not go backward of forward. When i discovered this had happened it was already too late. My emerald crab had eaten its face off and killed it. (I only checked the tank moments before and then went to answer the doorbell).
This i might add is extremly rare and not usual behaviour for the crab, it merely wanderedin and found a fish in distress and did what it did naturally. I would not hesitate purchasing another emerald crab to be honest.

 

[@ombomb]

Given the amount of work mine does in keeping the tank clean, I'm happy to have it in there.

 

[sukie]

Well funny thing you posted this - because I bought (2) emerald crabs just a couple days ago and I placed them in my tank. . . . they were so cute til one of them took a big rip out of one of my polyps!!!

I took them out 5mins later and returned them the next day for turbo snails

 

[@ombomb]

I have seen mine try and nip at a mushroom, but it tried it once or twice and then left it alone.

 

[crazyelece]

I have seen mine climb on and around all my corals and the only thing it goes after is the string algea around them. I give them a thumbs up far any tank and put them in mine at a rate of 1 per 30 gals.