What stores sell Acro Crabs and opinions on them?

[BowieReefer84]

I have seen Acropora Crabs aka: bandit crabs on Live Aquaria DD for about $15 each. However, I do not want to buy something like this online if I can get them locally. Anyone know of a store that sells them? I usually hang out up at Exotic Aquatics and House of Trops, and have never seen them there. I GUESS I would travel to NVA if I had too...

 

Also, I read they help remove detritus and mucus from the sps. Anyone have first hand experience? I even read they can help increase polyp extension... I have not seen to many member tanks in person, but I have NEVER seen anyone mention having them. Just curious.

 

Thanks,

Mike

[Chad]

I picked up a couple from LA a while back when I introduced some pocillipora to my system. Honestly, I thought they were cool on the diversity front (VERY hard to see, though, even if you knew where they were), but dont know that I saw any benefit from them. Cool buggers, though, I would get them again.

[Coral Hind]

I used to have about 20 in my display tank. I don't know about them increasing polyp extension but they do seem to keep AEFW off of the corals. $15 seems high for such a little crab. If a LFS store dips the new acros upon arrival they should be able to scoop up any hitchiking crabs for you. The crabs don't last long in a dip so they bail off the acro real fast.

[tecsavi]

I have never bought one but had one come as a hitchhiker on a purpletip acro colony I had. It use to stay in one area near the base of the colony and never seemed to harm the coral much. I did see some irritation of the tissue on the coral where the crab was always at. The coral kind of grew around where the crab was. The crab never harmed and acros and just seemed to use it as shelter. I tried to ID it but you will find there is very little information out there on specific types of crabs. Acro crabs is kind of a generic term for any crab that lives in an acropora. I myself would be leery of trying to buy one as you might get one that like to eat where it lives.

[Coral Hind]

tecsavi brings up a good point. You will want the white ones with a black bar across the eyes. There are some other similar shaped crabs that are an all tan color that I had that actually ate the tissue off of SPS. Those seemed to like millis the most.

[Der ABT]

Got these guys with some colonies i bought from Fins and Feathers a while back

I still have one in the tank (old wrasse got a few of the others) and he doesnt harm the acro at all just keeps it clean of crap and defends it from fish (too funnyh to watch he used to go after the mandarin i had when it would hover near the colony)

 

I tihnk they are definately a cool addition to any colony, i have not noticed any strange growth from the crabs nesting site though,

[tecsavi]

Great pictures of that acro crab! They are fun to watch defending their home. I had a big fat wrasse that was itching to make a meal out it. He would poke his nose into the acro until the crab bit it's nose and the wrasse would shoot out of there like a rocket. It wold leave the crab alone for a while and then try again. When I fed my tank it would hold one claw out trying to grab at any food floating in the water column. I never saw mine come out of the coral head like yours, maybe it was the wrasse that kept him there.

 

I had a friend that had a crab come in on a colony that was good for about a month. It didn't strip off flesh like Coral Hind described but plucked off polyps like it was at an all you can eat buffet. The colony was about 1' in diameter and attached to a large piece of rock. We had to take the entire colony out and dip it because the crab was in the center. It was a real pain to get him out of there because it took two people to get the colony out. By the time it was finally out it had killed about 1/8th of the colony, mostly the braches near it's nest.

 

I'm not trying to say that these crabs are all bad as obviously there are many that are not. I love to have diversity in my tanks and it was really cool to have a small acro crab in my tank. Once they start munching on my corals they got to go though.