What kind of crab is this?

[jennc]

This guy crawled out of my live rock and I cannot find him in any of my books or in the FAQ for this site. He is about an inch and a quarter wide and I am wanting to know (a) what kind of crab he is, (b) how big he is going to get, and (c) whether he's going to start eating my corals??? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thx.
JennC

 

[wade1]

jennc

:welcome:

I would say a) getting a species is going to be extraordinarily tough
b) its going to get huge (as big as food will allow)
c) it won't touch your corals, but it will eat your snails and threaten any small fish

In general, you can examine the tips of the claws and tell what its eating harbits are. Algae eating crabs (that will also eat meaty foods!) have flattened tips, made for pulling algae from rock. Most crabs have pointed tips, indicating that they will massacre the snail population.

Wade

 

[Mihai]

It looks very much like my stone crab. It was absolutely ferocious: it ate everything and re-arranged the rocks in my fuge on daily basis. Like Wade said, it would not touch the corals though .

M.

 

[Oceans Ferevh]

Boy look at that guy...kinda has that mean deamon look about him. You might want to throw some holly water in the tank and say a prayer before trying to catch him :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

I will say a Stone Crab. Neat! It will eat ehat it can catch! Not so neat.

 

[jennc]

Hmmm... Any ideas on how to catch and remove him?
JennC

 

[Mihai]

I had no problems catching it with my net, however, if that is a problem others had good luck with a jar/glass with a piece of shrimp in it leaning on to the rocks: the crabs gets in and can't get out.

M.

 

[romunov]

I have something similar.
I can lure it out with a piece of shrimp. He is fun to watch, but he's outta there asap.

 

[sompa]

I have that exact species as well. I put a glass in with some shrimp and leaned it up against the rocks at night. In the morning it was in the bottom of the glass. It now has a new home in my overflow box. I put some shrimp in there once a week and he loves it.

 

[RondaGP]

It's a red clinging crab.

Here is a picture of mine eating one of my astrea shells.

 

[Blazin__]

i had one of those in my tank fairly large. about 1.5" across it raised some hell in my tank. got big enought to eat snails. rearanging rocks on a daily basis, hid in one of my rocks underneath the whole mess so it made it next to imposible to catch, constantly moving frags underneath rocks and stuffing them in his little cave, i tried catching him in that pop bottle setup a few nights in a row. he learnt the game and just took the food.

But in the end i caught him took him to the lfs and fed him to the puffers, it made me feel better

 

[Juck]

lol

 

[RondaGP]

i had one of those in my tank fairly large. about 1.5" across it raised some hell in my tank. got big enought to eat snails. rearanging rocks on a daily basis, hid in one of my rocks underneath the whole mess so it made it next to imposible to catch, constantly moving frags underneath rocks and stuffing them in his little cave, i tried catching him in that pop bottle setup a few nights in a row. he learnt the game and just took the food.

But in the end i caught him took him to the lfs and fed him to the puffers, it made me feel better

Mine is about two inches across.
As soon as I set up my refrigium/sump he's getting a new home!

 

[Anonymous]

I've had a few over the years, as well. I could usually coax them out with some Seaweed Selects...they never could resist that. Then it was an easy net grab. Finally, a trip to the LFS.

 

[Anonymous]

8O

That's JennC and not JenNC..correct? Not a "bettagirl" lady from North Carolina are you?

<asks 'cause Chrispy is too chicken >

:wink:

BMP