Emeral crabs alge growthon them

[LafondReef]

hello been reefing for many years and this is the first time I have had alge growth on my emerald crabs.. I asked the LFS for advice and they told me to put them in my dark sump...ok question I have is will it kill off the growth? How long? And is this good advice? This one is new to me thanks for advice in advance....

 

[Lavey29]

What does it matter? That is probably natural camouflage. All my big snails are covered in algae. The hermits ride them and puck it off.

 

[hatteras hank]

I only have a couple trochus snails and I see them occasionally taking turns cleaning the algae from each others shells. Not sure a crab would tolerate such behavior though.

 

[RoseQuatics]

I don’t think algae growth on a crab would harm it.

Do you have herbivorous fish? My tangs eat algae off my conchs and snails all the time. It’s actually funny to watch them bombard the shells with “kisses” haha.

Another thought came to mind though… there is a crab sold as an ‘emerald crab’ but it’s really a gorilla crab. These crabs are ‘hairy’ and could easy be mistaken as an emerald crab with algae on it.