Zoanthid Crab????

[pointx]

Is there such a thing as a zooanthid crab? I have this crazy little crab that lives in my zooanthids. Honest to gawd it has 2 zoo polyps as eye balls or at least appears to be. I will try to take a close up so I am not cited as being a nut!!!! It also seems to clean the polyp stems as its way of nurishment but never does any harm to them.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff233/keys4fun/phot1-1.jpg

[650-IS350]

http://www.pbase.com/imagine/image/75988208
?
they come in white too.... besides burgandy

[pointx]

I have a few Porcelain Crabs but this is for sure not one. It looks really strange, maybe too many years of wild times is catching up with me,lol

[Woodward6288]

umm..can't really see the crab..do you have a better pics?

[Fishindude88]

Platypodiella? These live in colonies, usually in pits under the colony, and feed on the zoanthids. They concentrate the palytoxin in their tissue.
They are small and red with yellow blotches.

[goldmaniac]

don't see it

can you draw a circle around the crab?

[Fishindude88]

I think it is on the bottom left hand side of the rock, if you see the orange 'zoanthid' eyes... I think that is it.

[LandsharK.W.]

its not a small decorator crab, is it?

[pointx]

Bingo Landshark, looks like a decorator crab. Here is a pic on the net I found, looks just like it.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff233/keys4fun/images.jpg

[LandsharK.W.]

my impression of those is they can be mean when they're big. true? no?

[650-IS350]

yes and nip at fish and other inverts.... I had 2 of them, before.

[Woodward6288]

how big do they get?

[goldmaniac]

<img src="http://www.goldmaniac.com/misc/GIANT_CRAB.jpg" border="0" alt="">

[goldmaniac]

In looking up the size that they grow, i found two points:

1) sizes range - 1/2" to 4", I found.

2) they'll always be cutting off polyps to decorate their shell.

I think you need to weigh if the uniqueness of this guy is worth losing a few polyps at a slow but constant rate. depending on how many you have in your tank, it may be a sustainable amount of loss for a crab like this.

[pointx]

So far I have not seen it eat nor chop of any zoo's but I do have a lot so I just might not have noticed. I will keep my eye's on him and if gets out of hand I will let him go free.

R

[JAORLD3111]

It looks like a decorator crab. I've heard that in a new environment, they will drop anything they may already have on them, then pull off sponge and corals to decorate themselves but once they have the "outfit" they like, they wont mess with anything any more. They're kinda cool IMO

[redfishsc]

Yeah, the babies are cute, aren't they?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14300925#post14300925 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by goldmaniac
<img src="http://www.goldmaniac.com/misc/GIANT_CRAB.jpg" border="0" alt="">