Arrow crabs and cleaner shrimp

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T

the grim reefer

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
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Any thoughts on the 2 of them together? I am reading totally different views...the one I would like to get is a smaller species..about 3 in wide...I love my cleaner shrimp though..one girl at the LFS has 3 in her tank and they dont bother anything but one of my books said that they will kill all the little critters and are very aggresive..

Any one have any experience with this?

Thanks Grim
 
Thanks for the link...the chromis and the goby are pretty quick so they should be okay I hope and the next fish I get are clowns so they should be good I am thinking...one of those hit and miss things..they are so neat though I just love them.....its the critters that have me totally amazed more so than the fish right now...cant wait to give corals a whirl later on...

Grim
 
There is a large arrow crab at my LFS and he takes out an occasional fish.
 
roka64 said:
There is a large arrow crab at my LFS and he takes out an occasional fish.
Click to expand...

I had one in my tank and he was about 4" across, a big fella. Once I put my dwarf lobster in, they got along ok, but I woke up one morning and my arrow crab was gone. No legs, no pieces, nothing! I thought me might have went carpet surfing so I looked everywhere for him but couldn't find him. Weird huh? I wonder if the lobster ate him? ??????
 
So I tried it and needless to say blew up in my face...the arrow crab was fine for abit...went out for a couple hours yesterday and he ripped one of my cleaner shrimp to bits...I was so upset..they are my favorite thing in my tank..I phoned my LFS guy and he felt really bad too so he is replacing my cleaner shrimp because he did not think anything bad would happen...so the crab went back to the store...very neat creature though...even though he ate my little friend....

Now I need therapy :(

Grim
 
ACK! Sorry for your losses, I am surprised he wentt after him that fast. Was he bigger than the cleaner? At least your LFS is willing to replace him.
 
Had an arrow once in the biginning of time. One day, I came home and he was munching on an electric blue crab. Hmmm, maybe the crab had died anyway. The VERY next day, I come home and he's munching on a cleaner shrimp. OK, maybe the cleaner shrimp had died too, since my tank was fairly new at the time.

Although maybe a coincidence and he found dead critters. He went back to the store anyway. I've heard some can be rather agressive.

Also keep in mind that if you ever want to have feather dusters/tube worms, that arrow will be their worst enemy. He loves to pluck'm out of their tubes and have dinner.
 
He was about 3 in across I would say...big enough to kill my poor cleaner shrimp...I entertained the thought briefly that maybe he died but that was short lived because when I left he was out cruising around like always...he just decided that the shrimp had to go..thank goodness he never took the other one out too...

Lesson learned....

Yes I am very fortunate that my LFS is the way it is..the guy that runs it is simply amazing..a young kid that opened it on a gamble and he has totally taken the whole city like a storm. If it was not for his reassurance and help with equipment and stuff (of course you guys too :D ) I never would have ventured down the SW path...I am so glad I did because its so much fun..

Grim
 
Oh yeah, I had one that was probably 5 or 6 inches in diameter . It wqas huge. I would feed him the occasional ghost shrimp. He will eat anything he can catch. They are zctually pretty interesting.
 
K this thread is making me nervous lol... its quite a coincidence this thread came up seeing as I just bought *drum roll* a cleaner shrimp and an arrow crab yesterday. Both are in the tank and the arrow crab seems to act like kind of a wuss... he doesnt really make much of a move against any fish (although the smallest fish I have are fairy wrasses) and the crab himself is (im not sure what you guys are measuring) about an inch from base of his body to the tip of his nose/head/spike thing. I fear for the cleaner shrimp though now. Should I cut my losses now and take the crab back? Or is it worth it to wait and observe.
 
Well you could take your chances because the guy at my LFS said that he knew people who had no problems at all...me not so lucky. I took mine back. I very much enjoyed him for the time I had him. I guess its one of those hit and miss things. Some are compatible...others not so lucky. If you do decide to keep them make sure to let me know how you made out with them.

Good luck!
 
they are opportunistic feeders. If the opportunity arises to spear something, they will.
 
as the crab grows larger, they will go after larger things. The biggest danger is that the fish go to sleep and the crab will sneak up on them.
 
Crud... that would really stink to find an expensive fish speared. Im going to call my lfs tomorrow and see what they think, At this point it sounds too risky and just sort of a ticking time bomb. The research I did indicated small (really small) fish like neon gobbies are at risk but yeah... as it grows it would want more food (although itll be a long long time before its big enough to eat all of one of my fish...) I dunno.
 
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