Resolved Found a Crab

I found this little fellow in my tank filter feeding last night. I didn't know it was in there the whole time my tank has been up.

I figure it is reef safe so far because all of my corals have been fine. Now Im just curious if anyone can tell me what it is.

 

have a look here

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchcrabs.html

im guessing maybe an "Anomuran crab"?

 

I was thinking something from the Porcellanidae family but I didn't have a definitive answer. It isn't that big of a deal as he isn't trying to wreak havoc on my tank and seems really well behaved and just hangs out. He hasn't destroyed anything in my tank so I'm happy so far. I was wanting a few porcelain crabs so maybe I just lucked out. I will change this to resolved because at least I think we have the family of crab hammered out. They are so hard to ID... there are so many kinds.. LOL

 

well ill tell you this when i first started off as an utter noob every crab i found in my live rock i woudl catch and bring back in fear it would eat rocks and glass. i later found out that most of the times (and this is my personal point of view) it worth taking the risk and leaving them. they add to your cleanup crew. just recently i added a piece of rock to my tank and found a small crab in it, turned out it was one of the cute little dudes that lives in symbiosis with my Pocillopora (in fact a couple hours after i added him to the tank he was already in the middle of the coral with a large smile), cleaning what gets stuck on the coral and in turn the coral gives him a happy little fluffy home....AWESOME!!!!. but yea good luck with him...

 

Awesome! I love crabs and the irony of the situation was that I planned to buy a couple porcelain crabs because they stay so small and just filter feeders really. I missed one important detail that would have just told me for sure it was from that family and this crab has the most identifiable mark of Porcellanidae family. The crab has 6 legs instead of 8. Pretty much means it is a Porcellanidae of some kind. In fact they are more related to the squat lobster. I almost feel goofy for asking for an ID now. I do read a lot I just assumed there was no way the crab I managed to accquire by mistake was exactly what I wanted all along! Now I will get 2 more since I will not have any fish for a while. My tank is actually fishless and full of nothing but inverts and corals right now.

 

I'd agree with some type of porcelain, great find!