emerald crab

[fishswim]

I bought an emerald crab a while back. He has gotten pretty big, but it seems he has also gotten pretty aggressive. I see him act aggressive but never have actually seen him attack anything. Here is my problem. Suddenly all my hermit crabs are dead. One every couple days. Now my banded shrimp only has one arm. And it seems as though he is trying to eat my coral too. How aggressive can these guys be? And should I think about taking him out?

 

[blueberryboomer]

Hi there, We have several of these in our reef, we have never see any of ours acting aggresive towards anything. Now I'm not saying its not possible, I think another member on this bb had a similar problem. What else do you have in your tank? Fish, inverts? It could be something else, and you assume that its the emerald because you see him acting up. Lisa

 

[iceburg98]

One of the guys that works at my LFS will NOT put an emerald crab in his tank, and usually recommends against it just for that reason. Basically, they'll eat algae while there's some in the tank, but once the algae's gone, they go looking for food elsewhere.
I'm not saying that all emerald crabs are like this, i've seen some kept for quite a while with no problems, but i have also heard the horror stories about them too...
I'd definately keep an eye on him, and if he keeps acting up, and you see more things missing and have no other culprit, i'd take him out... amybe just QT him for a while to make sure it really was him