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deep6er
10/17/2007, 10:22 PM
I just found 2 small hairy crabs. sitting in one of my acro colonies. I did also find a small smooth whiteish crab in it too, but i left him in there. This acro has gone down hill over the past few weeks.
Could this be because of the crabs?
What do these crabs do?


The 2 crabs are sitting in a bucket waiting on their fait.

Thanks
DaddyJax
10/18/2007, 01:36 AM
Hairy crabs are bad and the smooth white ones with a black band across the eyes are good.
deep6er
10/18/2007, 01:57 AM
Do you have any idea what the bad ones do?
SPStoner
10/18/2007, 06:20 AM
Yes, they turn into these 6 inch monsters and come out every night to knock everything over. They will also eat your fish, only the expensive ones, of course. And, they will eat SPS corals.

Caught this bast@#%! a few months ago. Must have been in my tank for at least two years without me knowing and probably was very small when introduced, as I never noticed him. I did, however, have quite a few unexplained fish disappearances, as well as the frequent knocked over corals ( I thought it was the snails!)

Get the suckers out ASAP. This guy made excellent food for my wrasses after I smashed the heck out of him. I figured he owed me that after the hundreds of dollars of fish he ate!

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b82/SPStoner/DSCN4767.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b82/SPStoner/DSCN4765.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b82/SPStoner/DSCN4764.jpg
deep6er
10/18/2007, 08:25 AM
ahhhhh that picture is creapy. The 2 are out and dead.
Thanks all for your help
bureau13
10/18/2007, 10:39 AM
That's surely not the same as those tiny hairy blue-eyed crabs is it? Those appear to not be good for the coral host (I have one now I need to remove from an A. humilis) but I never considered the possibility of them growing big and eating fish. Wow.

jds
SPStoner
10/18/2007, 12:02 PM
The general rule of thumb is "hairy = bad"
Randy1
10/18/2007, 04:44 PM
Hairy+scary
snyder2050
10/18/2007, 06:18 PM
Are any of the smooth crabs that you find in acros bad too?
mile sq. reefer
10/18/2007, 08:44 PM
The smooth white crabs with the black band across the eyes are bandit crabs and are good for the host coral.
cutegecko3
10/18/2007, 10:16 PM
I had a commensal coral crab and a fuzzy little blue eyed crab on the same colony.I noticed bare spots appearing without any polyps so i got rid of the fuzzy one and the coral has recovered as a result.