Crab on my Acropora?

I agree with Corailline, cute little guy. I would maybe try to keep him and put him in the sump if you have one. I just love crabs tho so that's just me I'm sure.

 

Why, hello there! My acro crab.

 

very cute little guy! Great pic too Renee'! You have some serious photography talent!

 

Awww. Thanks. He was a mean little one, though. That acro was training food for my Orange Spotted Filefish. He would try to pinch them as they were grazing. I had to rehome him to someone who had LARGE acro colonies. If your acro is too small, they can irritate it for it's mucous and kill it. A large colony, will be able to spread the wealth of Mr. Picky Pants.

 

They also eat pest and keep them clean in that sense as well

 

Yes, but in our aquariums, with the small areas/specimens of SPS, they often get picked on day after day. Big wild colonies have no problems dealing with this, but a colony such as in my picture, will often die in time. Like a male anthias and a single woman, as a loose comparison..... he'll pick her to death in time. Give him 20 woman and they'll be quite happy. Thing is, not many people can have tanks to hold sufficient woman (or SPS).

Why do you think we send our kids to soccer and jazz band and gymnastics and their friend's house..... if I didn't have other SPS friends to share this little picking critter with, I know I would surely die Just kidding, of course.

 

If people didn't often overfrag their sps there would be no problem. I had a colony that held 3 w/o issue for several years before that tank got wiped out... and they stayed in their same colony they didn't move about. Same for the one that I had in a smaller softball sized milli colony for over a year. These crabs are not huge, nor are their appetites. But they will defend the acro/ their home from pest and predator as you saw with the filefish

 

With the species of crab the OP posted most definitely but with the picture of your crab I would say any baseball sized colony would be more than ok.

Last time I locked up a bunch of women in a tank I got 5-10 :-(

I had a crab in a Marshal Island ORA mariculture frag that was actually pretty small and the crab didn't kill it.

As long as its a Trapezia sp. you are fine. Probably Tetralia sp. as well. Cymo sp. are just trouble and thats probably what this one is.

 

This guy had an area at the base of two branches that he had wore an irritated hole into the flesh (previous coral). He was placed within this one because of the rub and did the same thing. That's how I came to get this little guy and his home for food.

If there was any other fish in the tank, I would have left him there. But this was the training tank, and at the time, getting an OSFF to eat frozen was rare. I didn't want any distractions.