Everytime I feed my corals this creep crawls around and steals their food. If I had my way he would be gone, but it's my husbands favorite. Any ideas?

Well.... you could feed it directly....

I had a peppermint shrimp that would steal food, and I used a turkey baster to blast him and he stayed away... It's just annoying though because you have to sit there and keep an eye on him. Also, if you can train your corals to eat during the day then it's less likely that he'll steal food. Another idea is to turn the lights off for 20 minutes or so until the corals extend their feeders and then turn the lights on (maybe 1/2 way if you have the capabilities) and keep the crab wanting to hide while the corals munch.

Good luck!

I do use a turkey baster, I give him some and then go back to my corals. The main one he steals from is my sun coral, I am having a hard enough time keeping it alive as it is. They eat so slow he just comes around and takes it out of their mouths. I have tried fighting him off with the turkey baster, persistant fellow he is.

Oh, a sun coral? That was the same problem coral with my pep...

I trained it to eat every day 1 hr or so before I turn off my lights... This kept the pep away since it wasn't too adventurous during the day (most shrimp & crabs are much more active at night).

how about feeding the heads and then putting a sawed off top of a water bottle/soda bottle over it while it finishes eating preventing the sally from making off with it's dinner?

get him out!!!!! This is what happened today to my shrimp... it met sally!!!!!

I agree with Michaelangelo, Sally Lightfoots are bad. They tend to get more aggressive the larger they get.

Yes, sally lightfoots (grapsid crabs) are not reef safe. Just tell your husband that it may be only a matter of time before the crab catches a fish.

+1

No worries anymore, he kicked the bucket on his own. However my husband is having a hard time believing me.

Satan Lightfoot crabs are evil get it out now before it decides to hunt and kill your fish, rip up corals that are digesting because it wants their food and killing them, and also just plain wreaking havoc in the tank.

+1 oh my god mind picks on my sun coral when it's digesting too. one time it tried to even eat my sun coral, boy was i pissed i'm getting him out asap thanks to this info.

You sure it just did not molt? Of course it has been a month since you posted this, so I assume you would have seen the devil crab since then...

Step dad had a reef tank along with weird tastes. He actually liked aiptasia, and let them take over to the point some were the size of a golf ball. At that point I wouldn't stick my hand in the tank without rubber gloves on :-)

Anyways, I gave him my CB shrimp because it was getting too big and mean and figured a tank full of aiptasia would be fun to navigate when you have big sensitive antenna waving around. Once a piece of food got lodged in a big aiptasia, and the CB spent about a day stalking around and trying to retrieve it without getting stung. The aiptasia won.

Always wondered how a big CB that's starving and a sally lightfoot would do in a deathmatch.

introducing a sally lightfoot crab was one of the biggest mistakes I've made in the years I've been doing this....just a horrible creature for a reef tank.

I never had issues with my sally lightfoot, never picked at corals or bothered fish, even had a green brittle star and a purple lobster yet they all got along fine, but this was in a 100Gal.

they seem to be opportunists....the size of your tank my be precluding encounters...my experiences have been with SFs finding and attacking sleeping wrasses, killing them.

I pretty much don't trust any crab, unless it's a teeniny little blue-leg hermit or a porcelain crab. Anything with big claws is not allowed in my reef tank.