Emerald crabs

[birdienyc]

hi all first post....
had my tank sitting for 7 monthes and i finally got a cleaner crew.... with 3 emerald crabs. now for some reason these guys give me a bad vibe and that i wont be able to now have small fish or bottom dwellers.... i tried doing a search on them and only thing that came up was buy buy buy now. so can i have gobies and small guys that can live with these crabs???? i seen them already attack and try to eat a few snails that happen to get in their eyesite.

ttyl and thanks
nick

 

[XXFirefighter]

I have had 0 problems with mine...
They bother no snail, hermits or corals...
or other fish for that matter !

 

[birdienyc]

ok awesome... so u have bottom dwellers too and no issues

 

[quarryshark]

Agree with XXFirefighter
Mine have been no problem at all and I have a couple bottom dwellers (see signature). I have had a few snails taken out by hermits, but never the emeralds.
Do you have a pic? Not all crabs sold as emeralds really are.

 

[lando]

I have two in my tank and have had no problems either. They eat the algea and leave everything else alone. Hey...WELCOME TO !!

 

[dralarms]

Not all crabs sold as emeralds really are.

Yea, I got a great big "stone crab" from wctropicals. He is in the sump, feeding off what ever comes down the tube, and some shrimp I give him once in a while

 

[clowninround]

i made a post earlier, mine got into my corals, but then maybe....

Not all crabs sold as emeralds really are.

 

[birdienyc]

i need to get a digi cam, but these guys are emeralds... they fit the pictures perfectly... just made me worried cause one semmed aggressive towards a snail. but since then they been ok... will wait 2 weeks before starting to add fish

thanks guys

 

[birdienyc]

how much of a bio load does crabs snails and hermits add to a tank?

 

[dralarms]

Less than they clean up. That's the beauty of it. They do have a small bio load but they make up for it in the "clean up" area.

 

[blorkiemom]

I had a vibe about mine, too, and when I did more research I found "reports" of them causing some problems with fish and corals. I think there are some model citizens and some felons among every species--so personally, I'd keep an eye out.

He did look like an emerald, BTW, but from what I've read several different species are sold as "emeralds" and some are better that others. Mine had the white-tipped claws.

 

[clowninround]

yeah mine had white tips too, must be the bad apples

 

[birdienyc]

so u can overload tank with them then

 

[birdienyc]

one has white tips n he is mean one

 

[clowninround]

Does anybody know about that? I wonder if this is good way to tell the difference from real emeralds from the wannabes lol.

 

[blorkiemom]

I dunno--but it seems like if it were that simple that info would be out there. Somebody start a poll!

 

[birdienyc]

im ready to flush my 3 crabs.... just looked at the tank to see how everything was and bam... there is a emerald chewing on a chromis. emerald is like 1.5 times bigger then the fish and the fish is near death after being scaled. if lps doesnt take them back i will flush them and after seeing what they did i wont lose sleep over it. i knew i had a feeling this would happen. had 3 chromis in since tues. my water has been stable for 3 months. readings are now as folloing... salt 1.023, temp 79/80 0 amm, 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates and ph is between 8.0 and 8.4 (damn colors look the same) so i doubt it was the water conditions... and its now friday so i doubt i shocked em when i introduced them into the tank. i dont get it since the other 2 are fine... has to be those damn crabs

 

[noone]

Let me get this straigt... white tipped claws= mean?

 

[birdienyc]

thats the one who had the chromis in his claws

 

[grimlock3000]

Let me get this straigt... white tipped claws= mean?

Just bought an Emerald last night, I think it has white tipped claws 8O