Crab hitchhiker ID Please

[Phuntoon]

Found this very nocturnal little guy searching with a red flashlight after lights out. It's shell is about the size of a quarter. I found his cave and when it's time to stay inside, it makes a wall/door with live rock rubble to lock himself in. Just wondering what this little Indonesian buddy of mine is.....and if it's even a buddy or a bully?

 

 

[Izzue]

bump

 

Im no expert...but the red eyes look MEAN!!!!

 

Izzue

[Phuntoon]

I know, those eyes DO look mean! Hopefully it's a grrrrrr, I'm gonna eat tons of algae and detrius like crazy kind of mean.........and not grrrrrr, those corals er lookin quite yummy kind of mean.

[linkia lady]

What do his claws look like? I had a bad crab with very sharp looking black claws!! sharp claws= bad crab

[jaidexl]

eriphia smithi, supposedly, here they are bad news. I eventually remove them when I find them.

[vike50brian]

I kept one in my tank for about 14 months, I think he hitchhiked in on some Fiji rock. I personally never had a problem with him but took him out because I felt he was getting to big for my tank. I saw him only eat algae, even saw him pick purple coralline off of rocks. In fact, when I was trying to catch him, I baited a glass that I leaned up against the LR his cave was in with a piece of shrimp. And for 2 nights only caught hermits. Then I used an algae pellet and caught him that night. Mine did just like you say, came out only at night and when it was time to molt he'd barricade himself inside his cave with rumble and would hide for 4-5 days. Then I would find his old shell pieces in front of his cave and I would know he was out an about again. I posted a few topics about my crab to find out more about him and got mostly bad things said about these crabs. But, IMO, and from my experience, their mostly harmless. I say only remove him if you suspect him of doing harm. He should be easy to catch if he does have to go. Do what I did and see if you can catch him, that way you'll know you can get him if you have to.

 

If your interested, I'll post some pics of my crab but right now I'm having trouble accessing my photebucket account because of a crappy connection. Give me a week and I can have them up.

 

edit: Check out this older post, I posted my pics on it already.

[formerly icyuodd/icyoud2]

he looks very similar to the box crabs i found in my indo liverock.

its hard to tell in the pic's, but the crab almost looked blue with red eyes

[Phuntoon]

eriphia smithi, supposedly, here they are bad news. I eventually remove them when I find them.

 

Thank you, You're right, Eriphia Smithi it is. I did quite a bit of research on this bugger. So far he hasn't caused problems, but from what I've read.....he will. I read on one post that someone lost 2/3 of his xenia stalk one night to this red eyed devil. I personally have only seen mine eat algae though. This tank is still in the infant stage with the cycle fairly recently finished so there's only a few various zoos and a ricordea in there. I'm not introducing any xenia, yellow polyps or other really "vulnerable to attack" corals from my other tank until he is gone. I'm gonna introduce a frogspawn which should be ok though. I think it will be going after my CUC first anyway. It must still be molting because it's been locked in it's cave for 3 days. I'm gonna go with trapping since I like my aquascape and don't want to tear down all the rocks to get to it. I'm not in a huge hurry to get him but I know a few different trapping methods so I'll let you know which one worked once it finally emerges from its cave.

[formerly icyuodd/icyoud2]

if your gonna use the bottle trick (like the pic above) drill a small hole in the bottle and point a powerhead in the dirrection of the bottle.

 

i found i had much better results in a bottle with 2 holes. it seems to move the scent instead of making the water in the bottle stagnent. when ever i've used a bottle with a second hole, i've always caught the crab within 2 hours of the lights going off (approx 5 crabs)

 

on the other hand, without the second hole, i've often been unsuccessful (including some of the same crabs)

[vike50brian]

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=121968

 

Heres the link, not sure why it didnt work the first time. My crab was kept with about 15 stalks of pom pom xenia and a big colony of yellow polyps as well as a number of mushrooms and rics . None of witch ever suffered any damage while the crab was in my tank. I wish he would have gone after those xenia because those things grew like weeds in my tank.

[jaidexl]

I've found three of them so far in my 8gl, not sure where the rocks came from , I remember the guy said fiji and somewhere else, I'm sure some are from here in FL. I blamed the first one for the disappearance of all my sponges and some crushed fan worm tubes, killed it and felt crummy. Gave the second to the lfs, and the third is living in the 8gl now and I have no intention of moving it any time soon. My zoo colony is growing back from a disaster without problems, anthelia and yellow polyps are fine, and all sponges, fan worms etc have come back in full force a long time ago, so I don't suspect this crab too much. He's barricaded himself in a hole for a week now so must be molting.

 

edit: I decided to get him out now since he's still in his hole and I can remove that rock easily, better safe than sorry, I suppose.

[RayWhisperer]

I had one of those. It caused me plenty of problems. It will kill, if it gets the chance. I lost about 100 or more stomatellas to it, probably just as many cerith snails, a barnacle blenny, and ANY loose frag mounted on a rock. The frags were used as barricades.

[Jackopus]

I had 4 in my Fiji rock, I hate those Red-eyed crabs

 

the little bastyrds ate my Green striped mushroom, then started working on my Zoas...

 

It took me 3 weeks to get them out....

 

Nasty nasty nasty