Had to evict my Emerald crab!!!!

cnason3 · Sep 13, 2016

I caught that little monster eating my expensive Acans today :mad: so out came the jar trap had him trapped in under 5 minutes. took him for a ride to the fish store. Think I will look at an anemone or Porcelain crab

Roboson · Sep 14, 2016

An emerald crab would have to be severely underfed for it to go after corals. Also they don't have the right kind of claws to seriously damage a hard coral like an acan. Polyps and soft corals, sure, acans, no. It's more likely something else damaged your acan and the Emerald was scavenging.

cnason3 · Sep 14, 2016

Roboson said:
An emerald crab would have to be severely underfed for it to go after corals. Also they don't have the right kind of claws to seriously damage a hard coral like an acan. Polyps and soft corals, sure, acans, no. It's more likely something else damaged your acan and the Emerald was scavenging.

I don't have anything else in my tank that would have ate it. I was feeding him daily when I would feed my clowns and fire fish. I watched him eating the coral. I have had emeralds in the past without any problem. The only things in my tank are 2 clowns 1 peppermint shrimp 1 fire fish and an algae blenny and snails . I started my tank with dry live rock. What kind of hitchhiker might you suggest that that could eat 1/4 of an acan head in just a few hours while the emerald was going at it. Just after I fed the little **** some shrimp out of the feeder. I hope I'm right and your wrong lol. Time will tell I guess

LetItReef · Sep 14, 2016

My suspect is the Peppermint shrimp. Had once in my tank and was munching on a Hammer

Roboson · Sep 14, 2016

How big was he?

Roboson · Sep 14, 2016

Also if you're feeding the acan directly, he may be trying to steal food from it. That's another possible explanation.

It's just a lot of work for an emerald to eat an acan. It doesn't make sense for him to go after that if there are easier soft corals for him to go rogue on. Or just normal food for him to eat in general.

Lovemycj7 · Sep 14, 2016

My emeralds will sit on my acans and other corals including Zoas but are always picking things off the coral. Never seen them remove pieces of the coral and believe me I watched closely when I first started seeing this. I had an acan lose a battle with a zoa that fell on top of it the emerald crab came over ate the damaged parts and left the healthy parts alone.

cnason3 · Sep 14, 2016

Roboson said:
How big was he?

he was pretty big. so far my acans are happy and nothing seems to be bothering them I was kind of worried that maybe it might be the blenny

rovster · Sep 15, 2016

Mine damaged the heck out of my purples Stylo. At first I couldn't believe my eyes. The next day the damage was apparent.

Bbaz123456 · Sep 15, 2016

Watch that peppermint next time you feed. I've had them tear open a very nice my miami chalice and heard of many others. I don't see why an emerald couldn't do the same thing though, I've just never witnessed it. If there's food in there and he wants it, I don't think it would be too hard to get at it. Not sure if he'd eat the flesh or it would just be collateral damage.

cnason3 · Sep 16, 2016

so far I have not seen any more damage to my acans. I have never seen the peppermint go near them when I feed the tank. now my emerald on the other hand was digging at the acan where the torn flesh was so I have no other suspect. it seems to be healing well. and the crab can be happy tearing up somebody else tank

fernalfer · Sep 16, 2016

my emeralds pretty much stay away from my corals but can't keep mushrooms they are gone the day they are put in. I guess they have a craving for mushrooms.

Joseph Pagnotta · Sep 16, 2016

Don't we all

fernalfer said:
my emeralds pretty much stay away from my corals but can't keep mushrooms they are gone the day they are put in. I guess they have a craving for mushrooms.

sergiofrp · Sep 16, 2016

As a begginer I bough one to have a better cleanning crew and within a few hours I saw it eating all my xenia

and taking him out of the tank was really difficult because they can hide anywhere. It was so stressful.

cnason3 · Sep 16, 2016

sergiofrp said:
As a begginer I bough one to have a better cleanning crew and within a few hours I saw it eating all my xenia and taking him out of the tank was really difficult because they can hide anywhere. It was so stressful.

I had mine in a trap in less than 5 minuets . just used a small glass spice jar with some krill in the bottom walked away for a few and he went for it lol. whole thing kind of sucks because they are cool to watch. I did some reading and it sounds like it's typically the males that cause trouble and the females are more docile . maybe sometime down the road I will give it another shot with a female

Wh00pS32 · Sep 17, 2016

I would still keep an eye on the peppermint, i used to have 4 in my tank and caught them picking at corals. Before i managed to get them out they had killed a bunch of acans, a black sun coral and a couple of nice favia's.
There will never be any peps in a tank that i own again. Some people never have a problem with them but for others they can be a huge problem.

JAWANA · Sep 17, 2016

Just removed my emerald crab and holloween hermit last week.. Emerald was going to town on my purple stylo and hermit was destroying my frogskin.. my tank is ULNS, not much algae to eat. When first put in they were fine, until they ran out of algae to eat, that's when I notice them starting to much on my corals. I actually let it go on for a week thinking that they were cleaning aglae off the frag plug.. nope I was wrong.. into the sump they go..