Hitchhiker

[White Lightning]

I saw this crab today and have no idea whether or not he's okay. I don't have a picture f him just yet. He looks a litttle like an emerald crab with red eyes. I know that he's not an emerald crab but am wondering if I should get rid of him.

I noticed that my green torch has a small chunk taken out of it's stem. I don't recall whether or not it was like this when I got it or whether it's something recent. Does this sound like the work of a hitchiker or would they eat/harm the polyps before attacking the stem? There is probably a more technical term for "stem" but I don't know what that is so for all intensive purposes I am just going to refer to it as the stem for now. Thanks for any insight.

[Vincenzo.]

ooooooooooooooooo, i love hitchhikers.

ya dump him in your sump.
red eyes = nocturnal = bad.
if you had some critters missing, he is the answer.

oh, and does it have pointy claws? if yes, he's bad.


as for the torch, might have just been a hermit crawling over and ripped the tissue... or do you mean the hard exoskeleton, or 'stem'? if so, id guess it was like that. usually they go right for the polyps.

[White Lightning]

Yeah I actually meant the exoskeleton.

That pretty much makes up my mind.....he's gotta go . CHances are he's the reaon for a lot of my snails going missing. I don't have a sump so he will go into a small bucket until I can figure out what to do with him. I was thinking of starting a FOWLR tank. Could any of these reef unfriendly creatures stay in there without being a concern for the fish I plan to keep?

[Vincenzo.]

^ehh IMO, no. once they big enough they will eat what ever they can catch. and apparently they are very efficient killers. it's most likely a species of "Xanthidae Crab" there quite bad ass.

does it look like this?


^or any variation...deff not reef safe. nor fish safe either

[salvini55]

I bet youll have to kill it to get it out of the hole. When my emerald died, it took me 25 mins to get it out.... and it was dead!