Emerald crab killing coral?

[Jake_the_reefer]

So I just bought two baby emerald crabs and I noticed one of them grabbing at and eating something from my green star polyps I'm unsure if he is eating copepods (which heavily cover my live rocks and corals) or actually eating my gsp. Is it common for them to eat gsp or he probably not eating it. I've attached a picture that shows the gsp while he was messing with it and a picture 5 minutes after I scared the crab and it came out a bit

 

[James M]

It could be eating the gsp or eating something around it

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

It could be eating the gsp or eating something around it

Is it common for them to eat coral?

 

[James M]

Is it common for them to eat coral?

They’re a 50/50 with coral. Some will and some won’t

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

They’re a 50/50 with coral. Some will and some won’t

I'm hoping it's that 50% that doesnt Haha. I dont notice any polyps missing their arms they are fully in tact and the base of the gsp looks in tact so I assume he was eating copepods

 

[Cell]

I've busted my guy picking at coral a couple times. He is not even discrete about it sometimes.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

I've busted my guy picking at coral a couple times. He is not even discrete about it sometimes.

What coral is that, its gorgeous

 

[Jon Fishman]

Mine have always picked algae OFF of my coral.... and GSP's are algae magnets when the polyps aren't out.

 

[Saltyreef]

Agreed with Jon. A lot of algae and detritus gets caught around frags especially something like gsp. My emrald is the size of a golf ball and doesnt bother any corals in my tank. He likes to pick GHA from inbetween the zoas sometimes which makes it look like hes eating them. I had another crab that looked similar to my emrald but had sharp claw tips vs cupped. He would munch down on whatever. He was given up for adoption to the LFS lol.

 

[wkd4b11]

Emeralds are hit or miss.
I've had one eat half of my 4" toadstool leather.

I've had others that don't touch the corals.

 

[HawaiianReef]

Mine have always picked algae OFF of my coral.... and GSP's are algae magnets when the polyps aren't out.

I agree.
From the picture it doesn't look like there's any tissue loss. Just retracted polyps. The guy was probably cleaning off waste and algae. But I would keep a close eye on him.

 

[Cell]

What coral is that, its gorgeous

Just a nice frogspawn.

 

[Cell]

I target feed my emerald crab nori every couple days to keep him fat and happy too. The less hungry he is, the less likely he'll view my coral as a delicious meal.

 

[TinyTinCans]

I bought two green emerald crabs clean up some bubble algae. What was funny ( not haha funny)is they didn’t touch the bubble algae but they ate 15 to 20 of my zoas before I figure out that it was them eating them.

 

[Bob Weigant]

when I used to have emerald crabs they were always stealing my frags that were on disk

 

[NewGoby]

I'm never buying these again, I used to keep one.. and he started to annoy & eat at my leather ...