unidentified mystery crab!

[365seasons]

My husband and I were doing a water test on our saltwater tonight, and out of the corner of my eye I saw little pinchers coming out of one of the holes in our liverock!

Upon further investigation we found a dark purple ( ? ) crab about the size of a toonie.

We found a couple little tiny crabs dead (:cry:) when we first set up our tank, and just figured they came in our rock, but this guy must have been living there for 3 or 4 months at least now!

Never seen him before, and as much as he was poking his pinchers out, he didn't come out. We were pretty excited.


Is this normal for liverock? Any ideas on what it may be??
We can try and snag some pictures if he ever comes out further!

Thanks in advance!

[ILIKECOUGARS]

Yea, this is quite normal. Read up on Hitchhiker FAQs and Identification in the forum. Crabs that comes as hitchhiker are usually are bad.

[Marlin65]

Almost all crabs are bad news IMO I just pulled out three out of my new rock.
I had one years ago kill off all my snails. You probably have more than you can see. trap and feed to trigger.:twised:

[365seasons]

oh no!
He is bad then?
That's no good.


How would one go about finding them all and trapping them?
I would suspect there may be more because, as i said, this is our 3rd found.
We don't have a trigger fish, or anything to do with him, and I would feel bad killing the little guy :cry: .

What should we do!?

[365seasons]

we think it might be a Chlorodiella cytherea Guam?(ours looks a lil bit darker)
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/reefs/guamimg/crustacea/xanthidae/Pages/Image7.html

[brizzo]

Is this normal for liverock? Any ideas on what it may be??
We can try and snag some pictures if he ever comes out further!

Thanks in advance!

You'd be surprised what will show up in your tank even YEARS from now! Even hitch hikers on frags too. I now have brittlestars in my tank from frags, and a couple snails too :)

[Marlin65]

Trap them in a jar with a small hole in the top and a little food with rocks on top so they can't drag the food out that has worked well for me. Put it in at night and check in the morning. I was just kidding about the Trigger you can put them in your sump just keep them out of your main tank.:wink:

[Dolf]

You may want to look at this site- it has some general shapes of crabs and how reef safe (or not) they are likely to be. There is a better site- but I can not recall where to find it off hand. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-12/rs/index.php