Found Another Bad Crab, Anybody Want It?

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Bartman

There are some LFS that sell Mithrax (Emerald?) crabs. Why are they considered bad?

Was at the lfs the other day and they had emerald crabs for sale. They were very green. The mithrax I have is brown with red eyes, similar but smaller than the one in these photos:

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/42gal-mithraxcrab.htm

Our 42 gal had an anthias disappear without a trace. When I went looking for the body of the anthias, I came across the crab that a few people IDed as a mithrax and told me that it was not reef safe. I managed to get the crab out of the 42, which took quite awhile and numerous cuss words, and put it in our 2.5 gal for observation. While in the 2.5 gal, the crab started munching on some star polyps after lights out, so he was outta there in a hurry

Don't know if the crab ate the fish, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did. The anthias is a fish that sleeps and hides deep in holes in the rock - a perfect set up for a predatory crab at work in the night

HTH.