Crab snapping branches on SPS?

crazyfishmom

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Has anyone heard of this? I have been waking up to find branches completely missing off of SPS frags or colonies. Any thoughts? I think it must be a crab but no idea whether this is common or whether I should just start pulling all crabs out of the tank. Any thoughts?
 

ZaneTer

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I have only had this happen when my fish get spooked at night and slam into the branches.
 

feelingfishy

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Yes, my largest male emerald crab took chunks off my small JF Homewrecker frag. There are no other culprits as all I have is 6 fish, Mandarian Dragonet, Bicolor Foxface, pair of Mocha Gladiator clownfish, Midas blenny, and a Royal Gramma. None of which have ever shown any aggression towards any coral. Now the inverts I have are 8 Emerald crabs, 60+ Blue Leg hermits, 100 Astrea snails, 10 large Ceriths, and 100+ Dwarf Ceriths. The aquarium is a 2100 CADE so 235 gallons.

I used to have Dino’s ( which resolved quickly after bringing nutrients from 0/0 to 7/.03 ), and plenty of algae for all the inverts to eat, but as my tank has matured there is hardly any left except in the sump. This I think was the cause of the rouge crab which I have confined to the refugium. Since this incident I feed plenty of sinking pellets as the lights go off to keep the inverts fed and I have had no others issues.

The frag is starting to recover so ye I’m not too sad about it.

Attached are pictures of just before and immediately after.
IMG_0382.jpeg
IMG_0384.jpeg
 
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crazyfishmom

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Yes, my largest male emerald crab took chunks off my small JF Homewrecker frag. There are no other culprits as all I have is 6 fish, Mandarian Dragonet, Bicolor Foxface, pair of Mocha Gladiator clownfish, Midas blenny, and a Royal Gramma. None of which have ever shown any aggression towards any coral. Now the inverts I have are 8 Emerald crabs, 60+ Blue Leg hermits, 100 Astrea snails, 10 large Ceriths, and 100+ Dwarf Ceriths. The aquarium is a 2100 CADE so 235 gallons.

I used to have Dino’s ( which resolved quickly after bringing nutrients from 0/0 to 7/.03 ), and plenty of algae for all the inverts to eat, but as my tank has matured there is hardly any left except in the sump. This I think was the cause of the rouge crab which I have confined to the refugium. Since this incident I feed plenty of sinking pellets as the lights go off to keep the inverts fed and I have had no others issues.

The frag is starting to recover so ye I’m not too sad about it.

Attached are pictures of just before and immediately after.
IMG_0382.jpeg
IMG_0384.jpeg
Thanks for the tip. I might start trying to do that. It’s been several pieces now that he’s taken a limb off.
 

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