What Is This Thing? Should I Keep It?

[apatia77]

Hi, I bought 10kg of live rock today, and broght it home and then I saw this massive crab crawnling on the floor, it scared the hell out of me, should I keep it, its about 4-5cm wide. Its sitting in the bucket with water I had to remove from the tank before placing LF and LS. The tanks is a mess now after placing LS, i can't see anything.

The picture is bad quality as taken with crap camera.

Im not even sure if it is gonig to survive.

 

[ben1987]

i cant really tell with the pic, im not very good with crabs either. But usually if they have big shap looking claws then you get rid. red eyes is also a tell tale sign of a bad guy. i found one in mine i wasnt sure about so didnt take the chance.

 

[apatia77]

Thx for the speedy reply, I have taken another photo, this time the quality is better, also I dont see any red eyes.

 

[ben1987]

his claws look curved to me, is this right? usually curved claws mean algae eater i think. This is not always the case. If in doube re-home it at LFS or sump imp

 

[TigerIssey]

The picers are big and black. This suggests to me it is a bad crab. I would get rid of any that you are not sure of, I had one in my tank that caused the recession of some hairy mushrooms that have never come back.

Take it to LFS or sump it.

 

[apatia77]

Many thanks for your help.

I have checked some stickies and found this.

http/www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchcrabs.html

The crab does look very brown and the claws ends are black, this doesnt look like a good crab. It looks most like The Mithrax Crabs ( Cling Crabs), or Xanthid species as taken from the link.

I think I will need to get rid of it, its still in the bucket though.

I have no sump or going back to LFS is a no go, I have nano cube 24g and the shops closes at 2pm and its 5 miles away.

 

[SkiFletch]

It can probably do OK in the bucket overnight.

My policy with crabs: guilty until proven innocent...

 

[apatia77]

I am going to have a nice week, I have spotted another 3 small crabs in my tank, all different ones.

I am going to try catching them using a glass and some fishy bait..


EDIT:

some pictures of the new crabs, i think this is best quality i can get, the white crab is very small, the other one is at least twice the size, last crab was brown and very shy,

 

[scott133]

looks like your going to have some fun catching those crabs lol good luck

i cought most of the crabs in my tank using a king size prawn at the front of the tank and had the net there at night with the lights out so try that and see if you can catch them that way

regards scott

 

[apatia77]

I caught one crab last night, crab with red eyes!!, I will upload some pictures tonight, I used glass and bait (prawn piece) technique. 2 nights of trying and 1 crab caught

 

[karigupi]

Good luck with catching them all

I was going to ask a similar question, I have three that I have seen, 2 biggies & a smaller black & white one. I dont mind if the smaller one stays at least for now, but I need to get the bigger ones out.

Will sit with bait & net tonight lol Hubby suggested bacon like we use when crabbing with the kids at the seaside, but i'm worried about it messing up the water.

 

[apatia77]

Thats the one I caught last nigh, is has red eyes.

 

[bagu]

hes cute

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I would agree with Ski on this one.

I do have loads of crabs in my tank and so far none of them have caused any problems. However if I could get them all out into the sump I would. When I first got into marine tanks I had a really cool looking hitchhiker crab which I left in there. About 2-3 months later he was a LOT bigger and he ate one of my clown fish (plus most of the other crabs in the tank).

 

[apatia77]

Last night I caught another one very small crab, I think its the same white crab as on another picture. Here you get a very good quality picture, the crab was very small.

I am still after the hairy crab which is small but few times bigger that the one on the picture, I can see him every evening but it won't go for the prawn.

BTW thanks to all who is trying to ID the crabs.