Evil Crabs?

Sharkie

Sharkie

The Damsel Defender
Hello!

I have a questionnnn, My poor swimmy got attacked by some nasty crabs who i have been chasing for the afternoon after discovering his poor little body... the crabs were sitting on him but scattered when they saw me.

I have found 2 hiding in my live rock and was wondering if i was to stick them in a tank with fresh water for a night or two if it would hurt the other creatures in the rock/hurt the rock itself? I know there is a brittle star who has taken a liking to that particular rock and i don't want to kill him but if he has to be a casuality in order to rid myself of the crabs i'll do it!

i had hear freshwater will drive them out as well as other nasties that live in the rock?

is this true? If so i will be using my good water so as to not harm the rock too much more and hopefully get those crabs OUT!
 
The fish was probably already dead and the crabs were doing their clean up jobs by taking care of the bodies.
Besides,sitting liverock in freshwater is going to kill EVERYTHING on and in the rock,including the bacteria.
 
eww thats no good, i know these are not good crabs because they have long pointed claws rather than curved in ones and i was told by more than one LFS that those need to come out and i can bring them in for store credit... it was weird tho because my hermits we're there, just this huge ugly crabs. they aren't emerald crabs, in fact they look like nothing i've seen. i will try to get a picture of them if i see them again...


hmm... any ways to get rid of them while their in my tank now?
 
Do they look like flat, brown spiders? If so, they could be sally lightfoot crabs. You don't want to put your rock in fresh water unless it's a last resort. Like Yote said, it'd kill everything on it. Try trapping them first.
 
no they aren't sally light foots i have a couple of those and know what they look like, they are thick bodied crabs and are salmon colored... they have huge eyes also. I will try to snap a photo of these critters... the are around 1in long each... I just saw another one...
 
Interesting! But they sound like bad news. Generally, if you can't ID a crab, you have to assume it's not safe. There are just so few out there that are safe in our tanks, the odds are stacked against you if you managed to pick up a hitch hiker that you are unable to ID.
 
yea thats what i figured which is why i want them out!! LOL.

what exactly should i use to bait them? I took out my poor dear swimmy because i couldn't stand to watch the crabs eat him, he was given a proper burial down the "all drains lead to the ocean" place... lol. would just a piece of lunchmeat/hotdog do?
 
still no pictures of this crab? you mentioned that you have sally lightfoots too. I wouldnt be surprised if they were to blame and this guy was doing all the cleanup work
 
I would use a piece of fish, shrimp, scallop or something similar. If you put a piece of hot dog or lunch meat in the trap you may end up with an oil slick and who knows what else in your tank water.
 
just put a peice of shromp in a net and set it in the tank so that the handel is out of the water (you may need a longer net) than when it starts eating the food than pull it out quick.
 
i know its not the sally light foot crab, lol i have seen 2 of them and they are both way too tiny to do any damage to my fish (the are smaller than spiders and i have to look at the with a microscope, my big one went back to the LFS this last friday)..

i will try the shrimp and let you all know how it goes!
 
do what i did cut a clear 20oz coke bottle 3/4 of the way down from the top so the cone area is all gone, place it in the tank on the sand put food in and watch them come out and just pop ur net over the open end quick, thats how i caught my notorious camel shrimp that ate all my coral
 
ya i tryed a fresh water dip to get rid of a stone crab and a mantis and it did not work for either thay just stayed in the LR i had to go in army style and smashed them up to pices with chop sticks:chair:
 
when I got new rock for my tank before the fish we had a black clawed crab -- he was kinda cool as he was the only living creature in the tank - go buy some canned shrimp for salt water tank they will literally climb out on the rock to snag the shrimp and eat with vengence- you can catch it then - at least that is how we captured ours thank goodness we got rid of him as I hear they are bad news
 

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