Emerald crabs in sps tank?

[jimmypencil]

Anyone have success stories with sps dominant tank and emerald crabs? My tanks doing great but I have some hair algae and bubble algae taking control. I ordered a bunch of crabs including emeralds, blue legs, and Halloween.

Now I’m being reminded that everyone hates crabs and claims they kill and eat everything lol. Someone give me hope and convince me not to cancel my order!

Would also really hate for my sps to get destroyed as soon as they started taking off.

 

[littlefoxx]

Anyone have success stories with sps dominant tank and emerald crabs? My tanks doing great but I have some hair algae and bubble algae taking control. I ordered a bunch of crabs including emeralds, blue legs, and Halloween.

Now I’m being reminded that everyone hates crabs and claims they kill and eat everything lol. Someone give me hope and convince me not to cancel my order!

Would also really hate for my sps to get destroyed as soon as they started taking off.

Never had an issue with my emeralds. They did tick my zoas off and got a face full of toxin from crawling on them. I have a few sps frags, only ever saw my emeralds and halloweens pulling algae off them but never seemed to hurt them at all

 

[jimmypencil]

Never had an issue with my emeralds. They did tick my zoas off and got a face full of toxin from crawling on them. I have a few sps frags, only ever saw my emeralds and halloweens pulling algae off them but never seemed to hurt them at all

Glad to hear that. Thank you!

 

[littlefoxx]

I also feed little pieces of dried nori to my emeralds when the algae goes down to keep them from picking corals. They beg for it every time they see me

 

[littlefoxx]

I also feed little pieces of dried nori to my emeralds when the algae goes down to keep them from picking corals. They beg for it every time they see me

This might help if you see them picking at corals. Its super cute if you train them they will reach their claws out and beg when they see you!

 

[blaxsun]

When I had my large emerald crab he hung out in my large chip's acro constantly on the lookout for goodies. Never bothered it in the least.

 

[jimmypencil]

When I had my large emerald crab he hung out in my large chip's acro constantly on the lookout for goodies. Never bothered it in the least.

Love to hear that

 

[blaxsun]

Love to hear that

And it was a big crab (probably 3" across) - and a big acro. He would spend the day hanging out underneath picking off algae and they climb the "tree" at night to comb through all the polyps for nuggets.

 

[jimmypencil]

And it was a big crab (probably 3" across) - and a big acro. He would spend the day hanging out underneath picking off algae and they climb the "tree" at night to comb through all the polyps for nuggets.

I got 6 emeralds, 20 blue legs, and 1 Halloween for my 50 gallon. Hope that’s not over kill.

I have a tomini tang, lawnmower Blenny, and a bunch of Astrea and bumble bee snails and a conch. They are proving to not be quite enough for hair algae control.

 

[areefer01]

Anyone have success stories with sps dominant tank and emerald crabs? My tanks doing great but I have some hair algae and bubble algae taking control. I ordered a bunch of crabs including emeralds, blue legs, and Halloween.

Now I’m being reminded that everyone hates crabs and claims they kill and eat everything lol. Someone give me hope and convince me not to cancel my order!

Would also really hate for my sps to get destroyed as soon as they started taking off.

Animals are different. Hobbyist will keep the same animal in different systems and have different experiences. Just the way it works. The onus is on the hobbyist to ponder the question if they are willing to accept the risk by introducing them. And if something goes wrong how can they mitigate it.

You will find here, and elsewhere, that people have had both good and bad experiences with the crabs. On that note you could consider a smaller one, pithos.

 

[Anemone_Fanatic]

Emerald crabs will eat corals if there isn't much algae for them. People add them to sparkling clean tanks, and wonder why they resort to eating coral. In my tank, which has plenty of algae, I've never had a problem.

 

[Troylee]

My emerald loved to eat the polyps off my torts.. I was gonna remove it but it ended up dying

 

[kevgib67]

I have 2 large ones in my tank softies, lps and sps ( easy ones: birdsnest and monti cap) for at least 20 months, zero problems. I got my first ones decades ago to eradicate bubble algae, which they did an excellent job of, and I don’t recall ever having a problem. The just move along the rock picking on algae, I don’t think they even sleep!

 

[jimmypencil]

Emerald crabs will eat corals if there isn't much algae for them. People add them to sparkling clean tanks, and wonder why they resort to eating coral. In my tank, which has plenty of algae, I've never had a problem.

There will certainly be enough algae for them. I like to keep nutrients high. its strange because sand stays really clean but the rocks have a good bit of hair algae.

 

[jimmypencil]

just got the crabs today. one of the emeralds is MASSIVE with two gigantic claws. the others are pretty small, i will update this thread in a couple weeks on whether or not they are behaving. I love the Halloween hermit crab, this is my first one. super cool looking.

 

[Dexedrine]

I’ve had experience with emeralds eating zoas but after watching very closely it turns out the Zoas probably were dying and it was eating the leftover.
otherwise they were great at bubble algae but not really hair for me.

I’d suggest not feeding them sidvificakky so hopefully they focus straight to the algae.

Will tuxedo urchins ruin/bother your sps?? They are awesome for hair algae in my experience.

Good luck

Dex

 

[X-37B]

I have a quarter sized emerald crab in my 80 that lives in a large purple stylo. I removed as much bubble algae as I could and it keeps it in check.

Note: if you run an overflow check it for bubble algae. I pulled the pipe on my 80 to clean/scraped and pulled out a softball sized amount I never knew was their.

In my 20g nano I have 3 small emeralds that keep it in check.

I moved some rocks around in my 3+ year old 45 frag system and counted 12 emerald crabs that came off of rocks while in a bucket a few days ago.
No bubble algae to be found in that system.
It probably has another 10.
No issues with any frags and tank is 3.5 years old. I feed pellets once a week to all the shrimps in each system.