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ragawaga

Active Reefer
Hi,

Just to start I've not added anything new to my tank (that could house a hitch-hiker) for quite some time.

A couple of weeks ago, I found these on the bottom of my tank. The only crabs that I know of in the tank are some scarlet hermits and a mithrax. I was slightly concerned about thse as the claw looks considerably large in proportion to the carapace and I also didn't know if these were the result of moulting or from being eaten by something else.


claw_and_carapace.JPG


While looking at my tank last night, I came accross this crab. The markings on the joint of the claw look similar, but that doesn't explain the differences in colouring. This crab looks quite similar to a crab that came with my first piece of LR. Back then that crab had much smaller claws that seemed more proportionate to the crabs size and from left to right measured approx 2cm (including legs). I wasn't worried about it causing any harm so left it. Sorry I don't have any pics of it. I did have them on webshots, but they deleted the pics without telling me! :x As you can see from these pics, this crab is considerably larger.

scary_crab01.JPG

scary_crab02.JPG

scary_crab03.JPG

scary_crab04.JPG

scary_crab05.JPG

scary_crab06.JPG

scary_crab07.JPG

scary_crab08.JPG

scary_crab09.JPG


Does anybody know if the pics of the claw and carapace are from the same crab?
Does anybody know what type of crab this is?
Is the crab safe in the display tank? (no signs of it doing bad stuff yet)

At the moment, I've got it trapped in my seahorse/refugium tank.
 

investigator1

Advanced Reefer
Panopeus occidentalis 31x01s

Common Mud Crab


Omnivore. As you can prbably guess it lives in muddy sea floors and feeds on anything it can get. Probably loves ditritus/tank food and not a algae eater.
 

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