Ideas for DIY crab trap for small tank

[newfound77951]

I have a couple of hitchhiker crabs that I need to evict from my 10 gallon FOWLR....they are really cool little guys but I would like to get some other inverts and I don't want them to get eaten by the crabs (they are the hairy predatory ones). I've tried unsuccessfully to catch them with a net with little luck. I don't have much space as it's a 10 g and I have a very curious and constantly hungry 6 line wrasse in there too....any ideas on how to catch these crabs? One of the rocks has a large feather duster and the others have caulerpa, coralline (just starting to take off) and some cup corals so I'm hesitant to remove the rocks. I did try a quick FW dip but it didn't work.

 

[roka64]

Use a glass, lean it up against their rock, put food in the bottom, they go in and can't get back out.

 

[ntswift]

The only problem with that is if you have cleaner shrimp or hermits. They(the cleaner shrimp) tend to go in and rob the glass of the food when you put it in there. The hermits just fall in and get stuck and eat the food while they're in there. That is why I still have yet to catch my stupid hitchhiker crab. Hopefully if you try it though, you'll have better luck! You could always get a baby trigger and let him loose in your tank for a week or so if you dont have any inverts that you want to keep!

 

[melosu58]

I`ve seen the glass trick work many times but I guess Mr Swift has a point there. Those could be obstacles

 

[boardsurfer]

Have faith! I bet it will take you less than a week using the glass trick.

 

[newfound77951]

My worry with the glass trick is that the wrasse will just swim right in and take the food.... any ideas how to keep him out?

 

[melosu58]

If you do it at nite time most of your fish should be asleep. The crab will most likely be awake and moving.

 

[ntswift]

Like Melosu said they should be asleep and I think most wrasses sleep in the sand at night. Mine would go and dissappear about an hour before the lights went out. However just pull the glass out during the day and you should be okay.

 

[jamal-188]

I used the glass trick catching probably 5-6 crabs over time. To keep fish from eating it I'd wrap the rock in netting so they couldn't just yank the hunk of food from the rock, worked decently well.

You could also try using a red flashlight at night and a nice sharp stick. Some people don't like killing them but I found it was the only way with a few crabs, and after killing countless snails I didn't feel bad at all!!

 

[newfound77951]

Didn't think of the nighttime trick...will try that. My wrasse sleeps in the caulerpa.

 

[hc8719]

what do you plan doing with the crabs, taking them to the LFS?

 

[newfound77951]

Maybe, depends on how I catch them. They may go in a friend's tank, to the LFS or may be humanely euthanized.