Emerald crab cleaning me out...

[orwolf77]

My emerald crab I've had for a week now is cleaning my lr in a major way. Do they only eat algae? Should I maybe put some other food in there? Is there a good flourescent bulb I could buy to promote algae growth to keep up with him? He's a cool guy, so just want to take good care of him...

 

[beth]

Isn't there enough algae growth for him already? one of the main reasons people get this crab is because it is a good cleaner, particularly for bubble algae. If you want to add algae, you can get some seaweed selects. But there really is no such thing as a vegetarian crab, they are either carnivorous or omnivorous. My guess is that it is probably getting enough to eat. Now if you see him out and about scavenging, you might want to consider supplementing his diet.
As for lighting, what type of lighting do you now have? NO or VHO?

 

[heavenly damsel]

My emerald crabs will also clean up any fish food that hits the bottom of the tank. I feed my condy anemone small pieces of shrimp from the supermarket, if he happens to spit one back out on occasion...the emeralds love it. They just keep the tank squeaky clean by eating anything that is leftover from the other inhabitants. Be careful though, if you feed them too much other stuff the unwanted algae will go untouched in your tank. It is a delicate balance.

 

[orwolf77]

Beth, I just have regular flourescent tube lighting. Nothing fancy. I'm not sure what VHO is?

 

[krux]

VHO stands for very high output. The bulbs are basically a higher wattage and put out more lumens. This is important as you will get more algae growth in the same period of time as with regular bulbs. If you would like to see more algae in your tank, make sure that you run your lights at least 12 hours a day for normal output flourescents. This can be dropped significantly for VHO, PC, or MH bulbs, which can achieve the same photosynthetic light output in just 4 or 5 hours.
Additionally if you have access to another small aquarium, you can buy algae and cultivate it in the smaller tank, there are a lot of red tone bulb options if you want to go this route.... of course at that point you might as well start looking into setting up a refugium though.... combine food and filtration into one unit.
GL

 

[thered]

I don't want algea in my tank persnally, that's why I got my emerald crab. You really shouldn't worry, he is a scavenger and will find food, Especially if you occasionally feed your fish frozen food.