emerald crab eating finger leather coral?

[dandoozled]

The other day I purchased a finger leather frag, it looked really nice at the lfs but it hasn't really opened up that much in my tank and I noticed my emerald crab is very fond of it, it was picking something near it or off of the coral... and I'm concerned whether it may be chewing or destroying it because today the coral looks like it has some damage on it, some branches have the polyps and tissue completely ripped off.. I can't tell if the crab did this or whether I may have moved it improperly on accident. my parameters are perfect as told by my lfs

 

[dandoozled]

as you can see in the bottom right of the coral it's completely just white no polyps

 

[dandoozled]

 

[Saveafish]

Looks more like a soon to die birds nest sps. Not a soft leather.

 

[dandoozled]

Looks more like a soon to die birds nest sps. Not a soft leather.

my fault got the 2 mixed up, and soon to die? how come

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

my fault got the 2 mixed up, and soon to die? how come

6 of the branches appear to be dead or dying. The white is where flesh has decomposed and no longer has life on it. I would watch it close if the white spreads try and frag off the healthy bits as an effort to save it

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

It's also rather brown so possibly too little light or too high nutrience

 

[dandoozled]

It's also rather brown so possibly too little light or too high nutrience

is it possible for that white to appear over night? because it looked nothing like this 2 days ago at the store.. I'm not sure what to do

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

is it possible for that white to appear over night? because it looked nothing like this 2 days ago at the store.. I'm not sure what to do

It can definitely happen overnight for some.
I had an acro do the same. Looked perfectly fine. Started to brown. Then a little white started to show. And it was 100% dead in 4 days of me getting it. Tissue can rapidly die off at an extremely alarming rate due to lighting, water parameters or tank mates. I personally dont know the best fixes but someone else will chime in

 

[NatD]

Good morning.
Can you share the specific numbers of your parameters? More detail about your tank?

 

[DSC reef]

It's not uncommon for emerald crabs to munch corals, I've noticed a few members have had issues with them. I'd frag the remaining good pieces of the coral and catch the emerald to sump him.

 

[Retro Reefer]

after decades of keeping emeralds with zero issues I had one eat the flesh off my ASD venom a couple months back, caught it in the act! :mad:

 

[BeejReef]

Could be the crab, but I'd not blame him straight away. If that coral was sick or dying, they can go downhill fast. Crabs seem to go for dying stuff... not always the cause of the dying.

You might be able to save some of that coral by fragging off the biggest, healthiest piece and getting it on a new plug (perhaps after an iodine dip). The necrosis will just consume it all otherwise.