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Hairy crab - known reef criminal?


c3po

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I have a hairy crab which i suspect is knocking off my snails. It is approx 4-5cm, and a dodgy photo to assist with the ID. Personally i would like to keep him, but it isnt just the snails i am sick of losing... I have a decimated 'waving hand polyp' colony that is looking rather sparse now.

 

anyway, heres the photo.

 

BTW: he's the one to the right of the fungia ;)

 

resized001.jpg

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winniebagel

I think I spotted the elusive hairy crab in the photo...

 

Some crabs are shady, opportunistic characters when in an aquarium setting. Since you suspect him of picking off your snails and munching on some of your coral, I'd just toss him into the fuge or something.

 

Although, he looks more like a spider than anything... :x

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He is now with my LFS, who kindy took him off my hands. I am now crab free...no hermit or hairy guy...

BTW, when i had a close look at him in the bucket, he had some pretty serious claws!

Anyway, i couldnt afford replenishing my snails every fortnight... so out he goes. :(

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winniebagel

Hopefully you got some store credit from the LFS for that crab! You could use it for some replacement snails that the crab picked off for his previous meals. :)

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Good general rule of thumb....if the crab has hairy legs, keep it out of the reef. This is not 100% accurate, but it has held true for the majority. It seems that the more aggresive types of crabs and coral munchers tend to have hairy legs.

I also apply this rule to dates. :)

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  • 4 weeks later...
dawnstealer

We had a crab that looks like that, came as hitchhiker in our live rock.

Never saw him till we put the cleaning crew in the tank.

The crew weren't in there even 24hrs and he came out to get them.

He must have been hungry(the tank cycled for 3 weeks.)

 

He was easy to catch at that point.Put some food in a glass and he climbed in to get it.

We were going to bring him to the LFS but my girlfriend got attached to him.

So now he lives by himself in a 2.5g tank.

 

When we put him in the new tank we put in a peice of rock with no caves/holes and angled it so he could live under it.

The thing that is neat about him is he "chisled" the rock to make a "cave/hole" to live in.

So now he lives INSIDE the rock.

 

Here is a picture of him as of today. We had him since Feb.

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ahh, i think theyre called the teddy bear crabs or something. Thats awesome how you setup the 2.5 just for the little guy

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