Emerald morphed into giant overnight?

kendall

kendall

Member
I have 2 Emerald crabs in 46 gallon. THe male had about a 1 1/2 inch shell...THe female has about a 1inch shell. Not much growth in about 4 weeks of having them...The female molted today and looks good...The male literally DOUBLED in size overnight...It's unbelievable...
We stocked about 20 more hermits yesterday. One of the scarlet hermits was pretty big, about the size of the smaller emeralds, if you can imagine that. The large hermit and male emerald appeared to have a standoff last night...
Is it possible the Emerald could grow this big overnight? I swear his claws are double the size from yesterday, it's almost scary...
SHould I pull the large hermit and large Emerald out? Or let things be....At what size do hermits and emeralds start to cause problems? What are the types of life that would be at risk in my tank...
 
kendall

kendall

Member
Scratch those numbers I just got a better visual...
The female has only about a half inch shell. The Male has about a 1 inch shell. What appears to have morphed are the male's claws. Those definitely DOUBLED in size overnight...
Amazing. :scared:
 
drew2005

drew2005

Active Member
Havent noticed a morph from my emerald yet. My cleaner shrimp molted the other day. It was kinda cool to see. I thought he was dead and then he came out from his rock to say hi when i was lookin in the tank. :D
 
kendall

kendall

Member
My fish tank first molt day:
At 10am I get call from my girl telling me the emerald fell of the rock and was laying on back lifeless..
At 10:30am she calls me and tells me she flipped it over, still no movement..
At 5:30pm I get home and the emerald is on back...Carefull analysis indicates it is moving ever so slightly...
At 5:35pm I go back to tank and emerald has vanished...Shrimp is picking at shell...
At 5:40pm I realize all is well...
This hobby is just too much entertainment...! From possible sadness to amazing NATURE...
 
drew2005

drew2005

Active Member
Originally Posted by kendall
Drew,
How's your tank going? Have you added any fish yet, or are you just stocking inverts?
Its going. No fish yet. Just got the clean up crew in there. Im probably gonna get fish this weekend. My crew is feasting on the brown algae. :joy:
 
monalisa

monalisa

Active Member
Actually I have 2 emeralds in my tank now. Yesterday I got home to find what I thought was a dead emeral crab sitting on a rock at the mercy of a scarlet legged hermit. Further investigation, my larger hermit was fine, out, eating and fine. Looking further, there was my "little" emerald out and about and just as green as can be...hmmm. Yeah he molted, and now he's about the same size as my larger emerald. Side note: It looks like my larger emerald is about to molt as well...he's kinda discolored, and I noticed that on my smaller right before he molted. I'm not sure that this is a sign, but I'm going with it.
Lisa :happyfish
 
R

red79

Guest
Don't worry. I 've had my emerald for awhile then I got a female and that's when I realized hoe huge my emerald was. They get big so they tend to grow fast sometimes. I've seen them bigger than a silver dollar.
 
puffer32

puffer32

Active Member
I notice a growth every molt, mine had 2 and is deffinetly larger then the other who has had only 1 molt, they started out the same size. My CBS has agotten so big she is starting to scare me :scared: In a month my HC have traded to much larger shells, things are good......
 
kendall

kendall

Member
As long as the Emeralds don't pick at any new Corals in my tank, I'll let them grow as big as they want. If they catch a fish or a shrimp, well that's nature. I just don't want them picking at corals I add before they have a chance to grow and multiply.
For the record though, next time somebody freaks about an Emerald getting huge overnight, I can confirm, they do it...
 
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