Emerald crab...friend or foe to the reef?

[LTJGAlex]

LOL, to make light of all this a little...

I should have related my emerald removal story. On the day that I put him in there and saw his evil behavior, I reached my hand in to pull him out. Well, he clung to a rock and it took me 30 angered minutes to pry him off, with a lot of grunting, complaining and curses. Unfortunately, I was on a second date with a girl with whom I seemed to be doing very, very well. After that day she broke up over the phone because she said I'm too impatient and frustrated!!!

Oh well. Score: Hobby: 1 / sex life: 0.

[TheBimbo]

TheBimbo

[Madoktopus]

my emerald was perfect at first small and nice. then he was huge ond day (claws bigger than him nearly!) and jus sat on a toadstool so it wouldnt come out and picked at various soft coral polyps. i had o hand feed him nori to stop this behaviour but that didnt stop him from attacking the fish. took 2 hours to catch him which led to a rockslide and a complete re aquascape. "hulk" promtly went back to my lfs where they gave me £6 for him. good riddance!

[TheBimbo]

Originally posted by Madoktopus
my emerald was perfect at first small and nice. then he was huge ond day (claws bigger than him nearly!) and jus sat on a toadstool so it wouldnt come out and picked at various soft coral polyps. i had o hand feed him nori to stop this behaviour but that didnt stop him from attacking the fish. took 2 hours to catch him which led to a rockslide and a complete re aquascape. "hulk" promtly went back to my lfs where they gave me £6 for him. good riddance!

Atleast they took him back... I know we used to take fish, and such back all of the time... Has anyone seen the red ones??? We've had atleast 2 of those b/f along with the green ones...


TheBimbo

[LTJGAlex]

Yes, they are identical in terms of behavior and temperment.

[MCary]

My Coral Beauty seeks out my Emeralds and lets them clean her just like a cleaner shrimp.

[ACBlinky]

Originally posted by BriSape23
...If you have a good LFS, I would recommend getting one. However make sure they give you a female. The females are less aggressive and also will not get as big as the males. The females will have a flap on the underside where they carry the eggs. Males will not. Your LFS should know the difference.

Just wanted to second this - I had a (pink) male who matured very quickly and started showing too much of an interest in my corals and taking swipes at passing fish. Now when customers come into the LFS where I work weekends looking for emeralds to add to their reef, I catch them a female. Those with FOWLR tanks get males - there may be no basis to my theory that the girls are more reef safe, but I figure it can't hurt.
Here's an article I found on crabs that shows a nice picture of the underside of a female teddybear crab - to me, emerald crabs look like they have a 'six pack'; males have a point dividing the two halves, females don't.

[Thorndunes]

I put 2 in my tank with my janitor crew. After 3 days, 1 was dead in the morning. Don't know for sure but I think the other one is guilty.
The other one lasted a few monthes then died himself, could be they were doomed from the start. I bought them mail order and I lost a good portion of the order.

They NEVER bothered anything though as far as I saw.

[R33f3r]

I have owned several in the past, luckily they never ate any coral or harmed any fish, but they did eat tons of coralline and green hair algae. Never touched the valonia. All of them died within a year.

[Amy83820]

I've had my emerald crab for about 7 months and he seems to be doing fine.... no coral casualties!