Emerald Crab Sea Food Buffet

Are you sure it's the emerald crabs doing that much damage.  Could there be something else causung the damage.  I have two emerald crabs and have had no ill effect.  How old is the live rock?  Could there be a hitch hicker, that is new or just started coming out.

John Fletcher "ReefAquarist"

WOW, you guys are quick to relpy !!!! LOL..

The Rocks were in my 30 gallon that ive had for almost 3 years. And never had any problems. The 150 was used as a fish only tank (Had a Lion fish in it for 3 years, he was a foot and a half long when he died) I bought the Reef critters to mainly keep the rocks alge free and help clean the sand (hence the cukes) and the snails of course to help with the alge on the glass. At first I too questioned something other then the Emeralds, so a Night ops with a red light caugt them chowing down on the stars and cukes. I called FFE and sence they all made it to the tank alive it was out of there hands. The last couple of days I have spent time exploring this forum and site, wish I would have discovered it a couple of years ago...... 

They are your typical green emerald crabs. All 4 are are pretty good size. Bright green and I think I saw one with a really big smile on his face. I did have some bubble alge and they did an awesome job of clearing that.

Then they were starving when you got them and couldn't find enough of their regular food so became opportunistic feeders, eating what ever they could find.

We would do well to always consider what food is found in our tanks and becareful not to add any organism that cannot be provided the proper type and amount of food.

People new to the hobby are continually telling me that their hermit crabs are eating their snails. This is because they have a new tank with very little algae, but they wanted to "do it right" so they bought their algae control because they heard that algae is a real problem. Anyway, you probably get the point.

BTW if you live near Salt Lake, you won't want to miss the meeting next Thursday where a very knowledgable person will be giving a presentation and answering questions about filtration.

A small amount of bubble algae is ok, non reefers really like the look of it as mark said.  I have seen tanks completely overgrown with the stuff and that doesn't look good (IMO).

Put me in the crowd that overpopulates snails and crabs in the tank.  They're fun to watch.

Bubble is fairly easy to remove once is gets the size of a marble...just pick it off with your fingers :).

Never had a problem with an emerald...once had a sally that I was verrrry suspisious about.