Mean Emarald crab

I had one that was doing that too.  I lost about 10 fish before I found out that it was the crab.  I keep seeing marks on some of my fish and was not sure want it was at first. After catching him with a small yellow wrasse.  It was removed from my tank. But I started look at my other fish and most of them had pad marks on them from his claws. 

 

Now I can’t say for sure that he ate all 10 of the fish that went missing but I have not lost another fish that way without an reason that I could find.

 

Good luck. 

P.S. a chicken bone was the way I got it out of my tank worked just like a craw fish. 

They're opportunistic feeders, stories like this aren't uncommon. If I was hungry enough, I'd eat the fish in your aquarium as well.

Bring it over Brian, Pablo will take care of it for you!

Softplan wrote: I just barley had a problem with an emerald crab.  I bought one this week. After a few min in the tank he went over to my hammer head and took a few good snips.  That night he ate a colony of my new zoas.  I tried the bottle trap... didn't work.  I then put a glass cup in the tank and tipped it up against some rock and put a piece of cooked shrimp in it.  In the morning I had 5 hermits in the cup and one very depressed emerald crab.  He is no longer in my tank. Funny story my wife tried to bait him out with a shrimp in some tongs.  She got distracted for one second and didn't have a strong grip on the shrimp.  The thing ran out and ripped it out of the tongs.  He was on could 9 with a piece of shrimp bigger than he was.

WOW I thought I had a problem I would have crushed him into a rock for that one.

  Ahhh Emerald Crabs...arent they fun ! I've kept them for years in multiple tanks and never had a problem.Until....."satanspawncrab" entered my tank a few months ago. I had some bubble algae growing and figured np ill just dump an emerald in there and problem solved.Not! Bubble algae was left alone. Tank was well fed. He managed to eat several colonies of zoas, a nice favia and a ton of GSP(hmmm actually not bad). If you do use emerald crabs in your tank i've found the small ones to be most effective as part of a cuc them removed them when they get larger sized. I've also read that the sex of the crab can make a difference on how aggressive they can be and sex can be determined by the carapace design on the underside of the crab. No dirty jokes ! From now on...I'm just using other effective cuc members minus the crabs its just not worth the risk for me.