damaged birds nest

[rob s.]

I have had about a months long battle with a rogue emerald crab that finally concluded last night. I was told emeralds are reef safe and many of you have agreed but this one seemed to develop a taste for my corals. It started with him taking a big chunk out of my Lords Acan and then he moved to my green zoa colony where he ate 2 polyps in the middle of the night. I tried catching him for weeks with no success but last night my dog woke me to go out and i decided to look at the tank and sure enough there it was perched in the branches of my new birds nest eating polyp after polyp!! I was able to surround the crab with my hands and he is no longer in my tank!! My question is.....there is some pretty good damage to the frag which is only about 3 inches long. Most of the bottom part of the branch has been eaten clean of polyps and i wondered if anyone else has ever had a similar thing happen and what was done to nurse the coral back into health. Any suggestions would be great. Lesson learned was any critter can eat on the corals if they so desire and i will NOT be putting another emerald into my reef! I even fed him algea tabs every couple days!! Thanks in advance for any suggestions on nursing it back and have a great day to all!!!!

 

[Ron Reefman]

The skeleton that has no polyps left may be a place where algae might grow. I'd just keep a close eye on it. If no algae grows, your fine. If it does, pull it out, cut the frag down to growing polyps and reattach to a new plug or a hole in the rockscape.

 

[maroun.c]

As long as source of damage is removed it should recover fast.