Neptune Aquatics

Acro crab

ofzakaria

ofzakaria

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Anyone here intentionally added acro crabs like trapezia crabs to their sps? Care to share your experince if you have?

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Coral reefer said:
Where do you get them from? How much?
How are they supposed to help the corals again? I forget.
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I buy them from live aquaria. I got some long time ago but they are gone with my transfer incident. Will place an order soon.

They live I'm the coral and basically clean coral, defend it from fish or large pests that tey to nip at the coral.
They live in specific sps colonies like styles and millis..oh they love millies.
I saw them in action in the past they do work on the coral and never seen it hurt. But u need to make sure it's the right crab. You do not want to end up with gorilla crab.
These ones have porcelain looking shells. Shiny and no hair whatsoever.

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I bought one of those crabs from LA a few years ago. I expected a tiny little acro crab like I'd seen in wild colonies in the old days but instead the crab was very big, over 1" across with very big pinchers. I was pretty concerned but decided to put it in the reef anyways, and as it happened the crab made its home in a medium sized pocillopora and as far as I could tell didn't hurt the coral or any other inhabitants, and it was entertaining to watch it catch food out of the current during feeding time. I assumed it spent all its time in one coral, but one night I was looking at the reef with a red light and found the crab on the complete other side of the tank in another coral, so evidently it did travel around the tank but seemed to return home by the morning.

Not something I'd get again because the size of the pinchers still scare me, but I never caught it doing anything bad.
 
Dan-sf said:
I bought one of those crabs from LA a few years ago. I expected a tiny little acro crab like I'd seen in wild colonies in the old days but instead the crab was very big, over 1" across with very big pinchers. I was pretty concerned but decided to put it in the reef anyways, and as it happened the crab made its home in a medium sized pocillopora and as far as I could tell didn't hurt the coral or any other inhabitants, and it was entertaining to watch it catch food out of the current during feeding time. I assumed it spent all its time in one coral, but one night I was looking at the reef with a red light and found the crab on the complete other side of the tank in another coral, so evidently it did travel around the tank but seemed to return home by the morning.

Not something I'd get again because the size of the pinchers still scare me, but I never caught it doing anything bad.
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How big is your tank? A 1” crab isn’t that big in a 150+ gallon tank.
 
Dan-sf said:
I bought one of those crabs from LA a few years ago. I expected a tiny little acro crab like I'd seen in wild colonies in the old days but instead the crab was very big, over 1" across with very big pinchers. I was pretty concerned but decided to put it in the reef anyways, and as it happened the crab made its home in a medium sized pocillopora and as far as I could tell didn't hurt the coral or any other inhabitants, and it was entertaining to watch it catch food out of the current during feeding time. I assumed it spent all its time in one coral, but one night I was looking at the reef with a red light and found the crab on the complete other side of the tank in another coral, so evidently it did travel around the tank but seemed to return home by the morning.

Not something I'd get again because the size of the pinchers still scare me, but I never caught it doing anything bad.
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1" is what I would expect thu. Are you sure it was an acro crab? I have had them in the past... many I would add. Never caught them nipping at the coral they actually scare away fish and other critters that come near the acro that i have seen. They also ate off the acro when food fell on the coral..
Its important to know what type of crab you are adding...some will harm the coral for sure.

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It was a 120 gallon tank. I currently have a 350 gallon tank and wouldn't add one, it isn't about tank size. It is just about the size of their pinchers and the theory that a crab will eat anything it can catch. However as I said I never saw any example of the crab misbehaving in any way. Incidentally if the crab were misbehaving it would probably be pretty easy to get out because when hosting in the coral, the crab would raise its pinchers and "defend" the coral if you went near it, not hide, so you could probably just grab it with tweezers.

And I don't know the exact species, but it was purchased from LA under that same listing above and the crab quite happily hosted in my pocillopora without damaging it (as if anything could damage a pocillopora anyways!). If I didn't have a pocillopora it might have nested in an acro, I'm not sure.

But I'm saying in comparison to the little 0.5" crabs I've seen living in wild acro colonies, the crabs sold on LA are not those. Whether or not the crabs on LA would be a positive addition to your reef is not a judgement I'm making either way.
 
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