arrrh, there be crabs in thar waters

[Tau2301]

I was at Big Al's last night and I must admit they had a very large selection of fish. Of course they had some of the unethical variety, but I am sure it is what just came with the stuff they did order :wink:

What they had that interested me were the crabs. The tank labels read; porcelin crab. sally lightfoot, green mithrax, and red mithrax.

As I run a deep sand bed with a variety of creatures, some I bought and some that seem to appear out of no where. I am curoius to know if any of these crabs will harm/consume my current critters.

Spagetti Worms, Bristle Worms, Pods, various snails, and fighting conches.

I have had a green mithrax in the past, but my six line wrasse took great delight in dragging it around the tank and them picking out it's soft bits.

Any experiance or lore about these crabs?

TIA

[EmilyB]

The porcelain crab is a filter feeder mostly, very cool, but since you have percs they will not let it share the anemone. Mine survives, but I think that is only because the percs prefer the sebae and just visit the LTA to chase out the porcelain crab. So he shows his face mostly at night.

Sally's are just awful IME. They'll chase your shrimp if you have them, and kill them when they get large enough. I had a sally jump straight up out of the tank and hit me in the face once..........http://jabot2000.homestead.com/files/emoticons/eek2.gif

Female mithrax is supposed to be okay...I had a male I think. He reminded me of ED 209 in the first Robocop movie. I've heard males eat blue mushrooms like they are potato chips..... :lol:

Had a red mud crab once (don't know if that was a red mithrax, it had black on one claw?) We never saw it much until Barry accidentally fed it to the large puffers we had........ :roll:
Those are my stories :D

[Tau2301]

The porcelain crab wouldn't have competition for the anemone as the clowns prefer the leather. The clowns don't even go near the anemone.

Of course it has only been in the last two weeks that I have seen the clowns playing in the folds of the leather. The leather is big enough that they can each have their own fold. Although the large one sometimes chases the small one out - more like rolling over and stealing all the covers.


So the P. Crab might be the best bet.

I will have to search around for some good pictures of P. Crabs so I don't get led down the garden path as to what is what.

Thanks for the info Deb.