Help me ID crab please

skennelly · 02-07-2005, 11:51 AM

What kind of crab is this? Is he reef safe?

Thanks

Gresham · 02-07-2005, 01:06 PM

Reef safe for now, but it'll get large and start to knock things over. Not sure as to exact ID, but I've seen tons of those. It'll eat algea, you can tell by the flat plates on the tips of the claws. If it were a meat eater, it would have teeth inside the claws (basicly).

skennelly · 02-07-2005, 01:15 PM

He is very small now, I can't imagine him knocking anything over, but I will have to keep an eye on him. He hangs out in one particular rock, so I can just remove that rock and shake him out.

Thanks again Gresham

Gresham · 02-07-2005, 01:19 PM

Those particular ones seem to move at light speed. I've had a heck of a time trying to catch my friends out of his 240. His does the same, stays in the same rock UNTIL I try to catch it. Then it pulls squirrel tactics (quote from Dale on King Of The Hill

) on me and hits the road. His is about 2 1/2 inches across now, 2 years since it was put in.

Jason McKenzie · 02-07-2005, 03:04 PM

I have one that I have had my eye on for awhile now. It was very small then I lost track of it. It was about 2 months later that I found him. He is a monster. I think I will attempt to get him out only because he is getting to big. No polyp eating or anything just grazes on algea.

J

Jade · 02-09-2005, 06:57 PM

The lil guy you have pictured looks like the one in my tank...he is red/brown though...and likewise any effort to catch him has been a joke...he plays 'round robin' on the rock...he is about the size of a fifty cent piece and thus far has been behaiving himself...so I have left him be...by the way...he was a LR hitch hicker...

skennelly · 02-10-2005, 06:48 AM

yeah, he was a hitchhiker on my lr too. I see him every other week maybe and he just barely pokes his head out from the rock. I like him alot, but if he is going to cause me problems, I'll make crab cakes out of him