Crab ID help

[ChiefRon]

Found this hitchhiker in a hole in some rock today, can someone help me ID it? I've heard red-eyes is usually bad...

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/565/207059crabs3.jpg

[Toddrtrex]

I don't recall the name, but I had one many years ago -- mean little guy -- like to eat corals. Do what you can to get it out of your tank.

[Capt_Cully]

doesn't look like something I'd want in my tank. Looks like a nasty little spud.

[Crustman]

It looks like a xanthoid crab. This would include mud and stone crabs. I think it will eventually wipe out your cleaner snails and would be happy to feed on other inverts and fish if it can catch them.

[Crustman]

Here I found them, they are family Menippidae and these are xanthoids known as stone crabs. Here is a link. Eriphia smithi
http://mangrove.nus.edu.sg/pub/seashore/text/216.htm

[Crustman]

This is the taxonomy from ITIS
Kingdom Animalia -- Animal, animals, animaux
Phylum Arthropoda -- arthropodes, arthropods, Artrópode
Subphylum Crustacea Brünnich, 1772 -- crustaceans, crustáceo, crustacés
Class Malacostraca Latreille, 1802
Subclass Eumalacostraca Grobben, 1892
Superorder Eucarida Calman, 1904 -- camarão, caranguejo, ermitão, lagosta, siri
Order Decapoda Latreille, 1802 -- crabes, crabs, crayfishes, crevettes, écrevisses, homards, lobsters, prawns, shrimp
Suborder Pleocyemata Burkenroad, 1963
Infraorder Brachyura Latreille, 1802 -- short-tailed crabs, true crabs
Superfamily Xanthoidea MacLeay, 1838
Family Menippidae Ortmann, 1893
Genus Eriphia Latreille, 1817
Direct Children:
Species Eriphia gonagra (J. C. Fabricius, 1781) -- redfinger rubble crab, warty crab
Species Eriphia sebana (Shaw and Nodder, 1803) -- smooth redeye crab
Species Eriphia smithii MacLeay, 1838 -- rough redeye crab
Species Eriphia verrucosa (Forskal, 1775)

[True Blue]

I found one in my tank too...
What would be the best way to get it out?

[ChiefRon]

Ok, he's no good, as I suspected.

Thanks for all the replies.

[ChiefRon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14339684#post14339684 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by evadeontrain
I found one in my tank too...
What would be the best way to get it out?

Where did you see it?

It wasn't too bad for me. I have a 34g setup for corals, anemone & pair of clownfish, with about 30lbs of rock.

I was looking for the new starfish I put in there, when I noticed a pair of red eyes peering out from a hole in the rock. I couldn't tell what it was, but it was not something I had stocked.

So I rearranged the other rocks to extract this rock, put it in a bucket of SW and then used long tweasers to extract the little bugger. He eventually came out, and I put the rock back in the tank. Then I had this guy isolated.

Sounds like you need to get him out of there. Good luck.

Wondering now what to do with him...