Emerald crabs and zoanthids?

[mfinn]

Bubble algae in your zoanthid tank?
How do you deal with it?
Emerald crabs?

 

[Davesgt]

Emerald crabs I find to be the best ,but just not any emerald crab. The smaller ones are the ones you want. I keep 2 small ones in my nano and trade them out to the LFS when they get larger. I once had a horrible infestation of bubble algae and these guys took care of it in a few months.

 

[mfief]

You definitely don't want larger emeralds. 3 came with the tank I bought and they are now in another tank because I caught 2 of the three dining on my Zoas.

 

[mfinn]

thanks.
I called a lfs and they have some under 1 inch

 

[PRomero]

like any crab, they are hit or miss

 

[mfinn]

like any crab, they are hit or miss

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of.

This is the first time I've ever considered using them.
I've read countless threads on the good and the bad with them.
And the bad scares me, but seeing the amount of bubble algae on the back side of some of my live rock alarmed me enough to want to try 2-3.

 

[Dragonreef202]

I have 2 emerald crabs in a 75 gal tank to take care of bubble algae. They eat it. I have also seen them eat pieces of a mushroom, of course I had a red hermit eat a bam bam polyp. So it's a crap shoot. Hope you get a good neighbor.

 

[PaulKreider]

They're great when they're small, I had one get pretty big and start fighting an anemone for a piece of shrimp... Never seen them eat any of my zoanthids though.

 

[Iptuous]

My emerald crab just ate my zoanthids.

 

[TheLadyCrash]

Had one emerald crab go after my Duncans. He got banished to the sump real fast. My newest one likes to "nest" in a birdsnest but doesn't seem to be doing any harm. He was near my funny d the other day but I watched him like a hawk and all he was doing was pulling some algae from in between the polyps.

Like others have said, it's a crapshoot