Lively tank with a recent death of a emerald crab...worried.

[Insider]

Hi all, my 42g tank has been doing great, coraline alge is growing (actually all kinds of alge is growing) I added some corals, brain, tree, mushrooms... every things has been doing great. But recently I found the emerald crab dead under the brain coral...

The brain coral is sitting on a rock with some room beneath it, that how I was able to see the dead crab. my hermits, sand star and snails are doing fine and eating. I can't fins the other emerald... I'm aftaid this is the start of something terriable,.... This is my first tank and my first casualty, please advise.

thx in advance,

 

[Anonymous]

These things happen...many people panick when they lose their first inhabitant...unfortunately IME invertebrates are usually first to go..inverts are very touchy..more than likely you had nothing to do with it...sounds like your tank is doing ok..you might wanna check your parameters..ie ph, specific gravity, and so forth...another thing, dont add copper treatments to your tank..if so you will lose you precious crabs...some advise for a beginner...HTH

 

[Anonymous]

No kidding, huh? A crab actually bit it? My crabs are like super mega crabs for some reason; I changed my filtration setup with just partially cured (not scrubbed or anything, just dumped into the tank and left for a week and a half) live rock. The tank clouded up so much I couldnt see two or three inches into it; I couldnt find the crab to take it out, and it happened rather spotaneously. Next thing I know, I see him scuttling around, eating, climbing, and doing generally crab related activities. Super tough! Althoug, he was an electric blue hermit, and he died later from unknown causes (my water was perfect, but two weeks later, boom, just lying there dead... :?: ).
Do you have any fish or aggressive inverts that could have stressed out the emeralds? I know that most inverts get along fine with each other, but I suspect that the newer, bigger electric blue I put in there actually bullied the little guy to death... Fish can be tough ones two; if theyre not big enough to swallow it whole, they generally leave em' alone; its the smaller guys that are nippers you must be aware of...

 

[Insider]

Well I have a alge blenny, active but not agressive... the dead emerald crab is actually the largest thing that can get around (the head size of a nickle) 2nd emerald (head size of a dime) 2 turbo snails, 2 top crown snails, 2 bumble bee, a small sand star (2 inch across), 1 small red foot hermit (which also are not looking good) I'm worried that a coral might have hurt the crab? (is that possible?)

I've got a brain coral (4 inches across the long part), a small tree coral some mushrooms and some polys...

Maybe I'm just being silly to worry about all this, things do die...? Although with the exception of the brain and tree coral, everything in the tank has been in there for months, I've tried to make changes slowly.

 

[psiico]

Are you sure it's the crab? I had a porcelain crab molt two weeks ago and I thought it was dead. The empty "skin" was perfectly intact and looked like a whole crab. When I went to remove it from the tank I knocked it between two rocks and when I bent down to look there was the porcelain, healthy as ever, but now a lighter color. He gets lighter with every molt, next time he'll probably be white. I don't know if living in a cave is the cause or not, but now I'm way off topic. The other molts he split the shell, looked like he was torn apart.

I had an emerald die a couple of days before that, but he really died, I watched him die over a couple of hours. He was new, only 6 days and almost as big as my hand including legs so I figured old age or poor acclimating. When I found the porcelain I was plenty worried untill I saw he was still in there alive. The emerald is my only death in that tank so far.

So if you still have the corpse, break it open to see if there's meat in there. Just a thought.

 

[Insider]

The dead emerold perfectly intact looked and colored exactly like the live thing... I didn't open it up, only the belly hatch was open... I'm pretty sure it's dead though...
I tought about the crab had just molted, but wasn't sure what the shell should look like...

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe the tree... The sand star and hermit crabs, though they may look under the weather, are also fairly prime suspects. I would be supprised if it was a relatively poor specimen to begin with, and he wasnt quite acclimated when he tried to scuttle over the tree, or ran into the hermit crab too soon. The star would be more of an inadvertent pest, possibly thinking the crab was already in a state of decay, or something...
Yeah, Id give serious consideration to the molting thing; the same thing just barely happened to me with my scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp. I though he was dead, but upon closer inspection, I saw he was more transparent than usual, and the real deal was behind a rock. I think crabs are tougher to tell with though. Grab him if you can, and do what Psiico said. If you already thre the body away, then forget about it. It was the crab, not the tank. You are absolved of your guilt. So be it. *waives pinkies in a mystical fashion*

 

[FishDude16]

I would open it. If it is the crab. Check water parimeters and post those. I dont think ne thing unusual is going on. Doesnt sound like it. YOur brain coral shouldnt be aggressive enough to kill the crab.