Finally found you...Eh eh !!

[belzebuth]

So snails, crabs and Chromis kept on disappearing over time... could never figure out who was doing it and never found any bodies.

Then on Sunday night I was changing the filter sock in the sump when I saw this large brown fuzzy claw sticking out of the rock, ran to the kitchen to get the flashlight then I found this dude

He must have been in the tank for a long time since I have not added any new corals or live rock in over 4 years.

I was thinking about setting up a trap but there was no way I was going to loose sight of him... with over 160 lbs of rock in there I didn't want to chance it.

Removing it was a lot of work since the little bugger was hiding pretty deep in one of the base rock. Took the rock out of the tank and tried pocking it out with a bent coat hanger. Nope, that didn't work..he kept on going deeper and deeper into the rock...then i remembered a post about someone flushing out their rock with some soda water. I didn't have any soda on hand but I sure love Gin so decided to try this with Tonic.

Tadaaaa... He almost ran to the front door

What a creepy bugger, he was the size of a twoonie.

It's almost been a week now and I noticed that my clown fishes seem less nervous when light is out.

Just wanted to share his fugliness...lol

[Flash]

nice gorilla!

[Scuba Diver Gal]

What the heck is that thing? Not an emerald crab I hope?

[Magickiwi]

Looks like a rock crab to me. I've had three of those and since I've managed to remove them the number of snails and hermits getting eaten has dropped almost to zero.

Although one of the beggars got a cone snail that had been hiding under the sand bed last night...

[belzebuth]

He was hairy with red eyes... definitely not an emerald crab

[hillbillyreefer]

I have one of those. After our epic battle to get him out of the display it turned into a love hate relationship. Once in a while I open the door to the sump, he flips me the bird and disappears. I didn't have the heart to off it, lol.

[STANKYfish]

We must of been lucky with ours, which grew to about 3in, never had any fatalities. Weird eh