Spider or crab??

xiholdtruex · Jun 4, 2020

I had a candy cane looking wierd with something on it. tried dipping in iodine and melafix and nothing, today I look and see it jumped to my fascination favia. I pulled it off with tweezers and dipped my corals again. does anyone know what this is?

Thanks in advance

El_Guapo13 · Jun 4, 2020

@KJ #reefsquad

Retro Reefer · Jun 4, 2020

Dose it have claws? Looks like possibly a gal crab

xiholdtruex · Jun 4, 2020

Retro Reefer said:
Dose it have claws? Looks like possibly a gal crab

Not that I could tell I had to pull it off it was grabbing on hard

dwest · Jun 4, 2020

Guessing crab here.

Retro Reefer · Jun 4, 2020

xiholdtruex said:
Not that I could tell I had to pull it off it was grabbing on hard

they can be really tiny compared to other crabs. you may want to check this out

A new species of Gall Crab from Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo.

Gall Crabs, Cryptochiridae, are colony-forming Crabs inhabiting Coral reefs. They dwell in tunnels within the Coral surface, often at ve...

sciencythoughts.blogspot.com

KJ · Jun 4, 2020

Gal crab.

andrewey · Jun 4, 2020

I agree with everyone here- looks like a gall crab to me

xiholdtruex · Jun 4, 2020

So I took a look at the link and its definitely a gall crab. Are these guys bad? Only ever seen that one.

andrewey · Jun 4, 2020

Not bad- will make a small hole in a coral, but once it makes its "gall", it won't move from that spot or cause any additional damage. I haven't seen any reports of any coral fatalities secondary to a gall crab "hosting" it.

xiholdtruex · Jun 5, 2020

Thanks for all the info and peace of mind, I had a mini heart attack when I saw it because I painstakingly dip everything, scrub dip again and swap plugs.