Crab ID.

[Cichlas]

Ok, probably about two months ago I spotted an unidentified crab hanging out in the weir of my reef tank. It was in there for a day or so and then disappeared. I didn't see it again. Yesterday, I was looking in my sump and saw a crab feeding right at the back. OK, fine I thought, the crab I'd seen had gone down the overflow and was living in the sump. Anyhow, this morning, our chocolate labrador was going spastic at something on the lounge floor, barking her head off and stalking it. The mrs thought there was a spider. When she went to investigate, it was a crab hot footing it across the lounge. It was about 25feet from the sump. I'm now a bit cautious about plonking it back in the sump as it went walkabouts. Any ideas what type of crab it is? Put it back in the sump, or the main tank? Not really into killing things.

Any ideas?

 

[Kevin8888]

First, I like your style haha I also do my best to avoild killing things in my aquaria unless I know without a doubt it's harmful. Also excellent pics. Hmmm crab ID's are easier said then done by anyone other then an "expert", I skimmed all my refference material related to marine crabs and couldn't find a match (something like 200 pages), which isn't surprizing. So I'm going to ask a question or two, one do you have acroporas? Or other branching corals? Is this guy tiny? Like under 1.5 inches? If you say yes to these I would hazzard a guess at it being a commensel coral crab, that lives in banching coral colonies and helps keep them healthy. I would look more into it, but I'm not on my usualy compture so some of my resources are not available to me, but I feel like it is similar in appearence to some of the commsel crabs I've seen in the past. When I get home tomorrow I'll have a look again with the rest of my reference material and see if I can get a positive ID, for now I'd say keep it in the sump just to be safe.

 

[C L O W N K N I F E]

Cool crab whatever it is

 

[Nate Dogg]

^ agreed if its bad you should set up a tank just for it

 

[Kevin8888]

I can't find any more info... and I'm leaning away from my previous statement about it being a commesal crab as its body shape seems wrong. Maybe try asking in the Invert section at marine depot, Dr. Ron Shimek (their invert expert) mite be able to help further.

 

[Cichlas]

Apologies for the late reply, thanks for the info. At the moment it is about 1.5-2.0 inches across but obviously I have no idea how big it might get. My only problem with putting it back in the sump is the fact it went walkabouts. Luckily we found it, who knows where it would've ended up. Having said that, maybe it went walkabouts every day and goes back to the sump afterwards