Unidentified crab in acro

[Reef-roach]

please excuse the crappy iPhone pic, I don't own another camera. The acro is an ORA borealis I've had for about 8 months and it's tripled in size. I just caught a glance of this little guy. He's in the middle of the frame at the base of the biggest branch. It's maybe 5 mm and pink/white. Not sure if it's a commensal or parasitic. The polyps around him are closed but there don't appear to be any dead spots (yet). Doesn't look like any acro crab I've seen, but I didn't want to jump the gun n break young branches off the coral if it wasn't something to worry about. Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[gar732]

It's tough to see what you have but from what I understand if it has black tips on its claws then it's a bad one.

 

[Reef-roach]

Thanks for the response! It's really small and hard to get a look at, but it doesn't appear to have black on it at all

 

[TUSI]

If he is hairy take him out

 

[Reef Pets]

In general if it's fuzzy or hairy looking then take it out. If it has a smooth shell then leave it in the colony.

 

[Reef-roach]

Thanks everyone for the responses. It's hard to tell, but I think he's got little fuzz on his legs. I'm diving in, he'll make great mantis food! Hopefully I don't bust up the borealis too bad.

 

[footballdude2k3]

If it is just a little bit of fuzz on the legs, that could be a good crab, especially since the coral is doing so well, look up tetralia, trapezia, and teddy bear crabs, if it is a teddy bear, get rid of it.

 

[Reef-roach]

Got it! Only broke off one little nub of the coral! Thanks for the info, footballdude. I looked at pics of what you listed before yanking him out. I think this is a wakeup call to be more meticulous in quarantine. I added a couple mariculture pieces recently and I'm guessing that's how it got in.

 

[footballdude2k3]

Nice, yea that's one to get out, I did a dip in double the strength and one of those survived, they are tough, after you dip, look very closely at the colony. When I get mariculture stuff from now on, I am going to be running it in a QT for a few weeks, it didn't matter to me too much at first, but now there is enough in my tank to make it worth the extra effort.