Emerald crab imposter

[twhit030]

I haven my year old 40 breeder all sps reef tank an emerald crab (or so I thought). My corals have all been doing very well for the first 11 months. This past month I’ve noticed the slow death of 2 very nice corals, 1 being a bubble gum digi and the other being some no name acro. I came home tonight with the lights off and the emerald crab out scavenging. I noticed him climbing on my digi and what looked like snipping or digging at the tips of it. I’ve heard some emerald crabs turn out to not actually being emerald crabs and causing some similar problems like this.

Possible imposter description: brownish color maybe a little green on him in the light, fuzzy legs (which seemed unusual) and just bigger than a quarter. I’ll try and get a good photo.

even if he’s an emerald I still might take him out and take him back to the store just in case (I have a plenty big enough clear we crew mainly got him for aesthetics)

if anyone has tips on how to get him out please do tell. Thank you!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I haven my year old 40 breeder all sps reef tank an emerald crab (or so I thought). My corals have all been doing very well for the first 11 months. This past month I’ve noticed the slow death of 2 very nice corals, 1 being a bubble gum digi and the other being some no name acro. I came home tonight with the lights off and the emerald crab out scavenging. I noticed him climbing on my digi and what looked like snipping or digging at the tips of it. I’ve heard some emerald crabs turn out to not actually being emerald crabs and causing some similar problems like this.

Possible imposter description: brownish color maybe a little green on him in the light, fuzzy legs (which seemed unusual) and just bigger than a quarter. I’ll try and get a good photo.

even if he’s an emerald I still might take him out and take him back to the store just in case (I have a plenty big enough clear we crew mainly got him for aesthetics)

if anyone has tips on how to get him out please do tell. Thank you!

I trust a politician more than I do an emerald crab

 

[twhit030]

I trust a politician more than I do an emerald crab

that’s awesome. Now I just have to wait for him to come out of the rock work and find a way to snag him.

 

[JessenD]

Hopefully it’s not a gorilla crab. They a brownish with fuzzy arm and are “bad news”

 

[twhit030]

Hopefully it’s not a gorilla crab. They a brownish with fuzzy arm and are “bad news”

I just googled pics of those after you mentioned them doesn’t look the same those claws are huge! Just have to find a way to catch/ crap him any ideas?

 

[JessenD]

I just googled pics of those after you mentioned them doesn’t look the same those claws are huge! Just have to find a way to catch/ crap him any ideas?

Well that’s good news. I’m not sure if they respond to red light the way fish do, kinda disables/ blinds them in some cases that with tongs maybe.

 

[stewie]

It could be a Ruby Emerald Crab. Same crab different color.

 

[FlyPenFly]

I think you might be on to something. I noticed an emerald crab with fuzzy legs picking at a coral that was very retracted. It might be that he was picking at the algae around the rim but there was plenty of algae around the area so I removed him from the tank, just in case.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

The will for sure kill cleaner shrimp during their molt