Don't tell my wife, I've got CRABS, well, crab. HELP!!!

[yitbos]

Things in my tank have been going great, however i have lost both a Clown Fish and a yellow eyed tang in the past month. Unable to locate any remains and finding no signs of disease or water parameters out of whack, i have been very concerned. I purchased 2 emerald crabs at the onset of setting up my tanks (almost a year ago) and I see one scavenging the rock here and there. I never see them both together and i never gave it a second thought. Also, over the past month, many of the fish don't go into the rockscape at when the lights go off.

Well, this morning, while the lights were off and i was performing a water change a Black crab, with a body about a 2" in diameter (legs and claws spread about the size of a small tarantula) came crawling out of the rocks with the head of my pink spotted shrimp goby. I'm telling you, I could boil this thing and make a sandwich with it.

I have never seen this thing and I am kind of embarrassed. So my question to you is: HOW DO I TRAP IT??

BOBBY

75gal bow
55 gal fuge

 

[dannyp02908]

gorilla crab maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba_bsiRP68s

That's a vid showing how to trap. Pretty easy to do, may take a couple days.

 

[delta]

Yup the bottle trap works wonders for crabs, as do night missions. I found while the Jar leaning on the the LR works, it takes a long time. So I took a wooden spoon handle after lights out with my LED moonlights on and they never see it coming. I would just trap them with the spoon handle and put them in my mantis tank. Where they would live out the rest of their lives. The wooden spoon handle gets into crevices pretty easily. Obviously with enough force applied the crab will live it's life out at the point of being trapped by the spoon handle.

 

[yitbos]

Thanks for the tips. If that bottled one is a Gorilla crab, then I got a bigger one.

 

[yitbos]

Captured! I sentence him to spend the balance of his natural life doing hard labor in the first chamber of my fuge, the land of detritus and filter socks!

 

[delta]

Looks big? Hard to tell from image

 

[JohnK]

Kind of looks like a mithrax from the pic??

 

[yitbos]

Body was a little bigger than a quarter. The claws were a little over 1" each. It was hairy and scary.

 

[PSU4ME]

It does look like a mithrax......the claws give it away. Not the best pic though so I can't be sure. Hairy throws me off a bit though. Lets hope you don't have more than one. I would continue to place the trap for a few more nights.

 

[s_kelley]

Looks like a good crap w flat claws for scraping algae, it may have bee just scavenging the fish after it was dead

 

[yitbos]

Perhaps you are correct. It is larger than any emerald I have had and my water parameters are all in check. Regardless, he should prosper in the fuge.

 

[JasonandSarah]

Looks like a normal emerald crab to me. You can tell by the flat white tips on the ends of its claws. If it was a gorilla crab it would have pointy claws.
I have a huge emerald crab in my tank and he just recently started coming out as well. They are crabs though and can go Rouge and start eating corals. I couldn't imagine one taking down a healthy fish though?