Captured - Unknown crab! (pics)

[dle1232003]

Hi Guy's

a few months ago at around 1am, i was looking at my tank with a small light, and noticed something move, it was too fast to see, other than being able to tell it was a crab. A few months past, and I couldn't find it again, just heard the faint tapping on the glass which reminded me it was there. Any how the other week, i found it in the night time, just after the lights went out, hiding away in a rock near the glass.

Tonight I managed to capture it, looking for a missing fish, I saw it in-between a rock and a hard place, literally. So out come the rock, and I managed to shake him out, in pieces, found the missing fish as well, this little critter had eaten him! don't think he was the cause of death, just took advantage. And now for the pictures;



http://imgur.com/G3P2O
http://imgur.com/TBjwZ
http://imgur.com/7BvZQ
http://imgur.com/bDBdP
http://imgur.com/LTX6N
http://imgur.com/BK2xm

[r60sgr]

I'm not well clued at all on crab id's so sorry can't help there. It seems unusual for it to break up like that though, Is that definitely the body or a cast? Stewart

[Gaters]

I would say xanthidae family-NOT reef safe, but Macca is the man with crabs. It also looks like a moult not the real thing, if you still have it crack open the body-if it's full of 'meat' then it's the real thing, if it isn't then you still have a crab in your tank.........only bigger.

[ejit]

here's a handy link to bookmark with some crab i.d's....had to use it a few times lol
http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchcrabs.html

[dle1232003]

its deffo the real thing, the breaking up was caused by trying to get the thing out of where it had stuck itself.

cheers for the link emit

[haden]

Looks a bit like mine



Got him out in one pieceand sumped him

[dle1232003]

i would say thats pretty much the same, apart from mine was darker in colour

[dle1232003]

hhmm don't usually bring up an older thread, especially my own, however I have another one of these in my tank! and its bigger. Now I'm pretty 100% sure the last one i took out wasn't a moult, but hey ho either way i've another in my tank,

any tips on catching it? Was just look the way i caught it last time.

[Macca]

as Gaters says its a member of xanthid crab. Best bet it to wait till lights go out when it comes out to play. They usually reside in a hole within your live rock and best bet is to remove the rock it hides in and then remove.

[ejit]

bottle trap. I have an emerald in my tank and set up a trap for a jade wrasse.
no sooner set up and the emerald was waving the claw of death at me from inside lol.
was more of a challenge trying to keep him out rather than trap him.