emerald crab hanging out in my birdsnest?

AaronFC · Jan 27, 2012

found a recently added emerald crab hanging out on a piece of green birdsnest today, is this normal? are these known to eat sps at all or is he simply just hangin out here?

mainereefer · Jan 27, 2012

I would get rid of the crab they like to pinch polyps from the sps

Landon · Jan 27, 2012

Mine did the same thing. It looked to me like he was eatting the polyps. I went ahead and gottem out.

el richie · Jan 27, 2012

Oooohhhh I have 3 doing the same thing looks like I onow what I have to do

SoCalDude · Jan 28, 2012

Mine like to hang out in birdsnests as well. I have never seen them eating polyps or doing anything bothersome. They just sit around.

BigJohnWoody · Jan 28, 2012

Same here as above poster. Mine hangs out in my birdsnest as well and I see no ill effects what so ever.

AaronFC · Jan 28, 2012

yea i made note of him kind of scraping at the growth tip of my purple stylo last night, but this morning, the polyps seem to all be there and fully extended, same with where he was sitting in the birds nest, it seemed to be ok.

chrisjj625 · Jan 28, 2012

Have on that hangs out in my Hawkins no problems have ever been noticed. Usually only at night.

Cubbies · Jan 28, 2012

I had to get rid of a couple. Some will pick at sps and some wont. If you noticed him doing it, you might as well get rid of him. I had to get rid of a couple of them because of this but I still have one that's a very respectful citizen.

KJAG · Jan 28, 2012

AaronFC said:
yea i made note of him kind of scraping at the growth tip of my purple stylo last night, but this morning, the polyps seem to all be there and fully extended, same with where he was sitting in the birds nest, it seemed to be ok.

Same here. I catch mine sitting in my SPS constantly, have seen them sort of clawing at the tips but havent seen any damage.Polyps are left untouched.

KJAG · Jan 28, 2012

Wow, disregard my previous post. Just caught mine grubbing on one of my Favia. I've never seen my Emerald do this before. I watched him for a few and he literally was pulling tissue off of one the Favia heads. He's going back to fishstore tomorrow.

bennylab · Jan 30, 2012

I have one that came in as a hitchhiker. Only comes out at night (infrequently) and has taken to eating zoas - a lot of them. Catching him has been an ongoing challenge for months. I will never trust them given this experience.