How do you catch a crab?

iceburg98

iceburg98

Member
What's the best way to catch a crab? i have this eveil looking crab in my tank that smuggled in on some live rock. It looks kinda like an emerald, but it has evil red eyes, and i only see it at night hiding in a cave.
Anyway, i want to get it out of my tank, at least to get a good ID on it, or keep it from damaging anything
I would do a freshwater dip, but the rock he's usually in is the biggest one at the bottom of the tank, and it has most of my corals on it :mad:
i tried setting up a trap with a shotglass in the sand with some food in it, but my anemone crab and brittle star keep going in for the food themselves...
does anyone know any other ways to get this bugger??????
please help!
P.S. i've been missing a firefish for the past two days now, and until i find evidence to prove otherwise, i'm holding this crab responsible
 
@knight

@knight

Member
my guess would be the crab too. ive got one im eyeing now myself. started like 1/2'' now hes 1 1/2.
i notice they are more active at night. might get a red light or some sort. I took a cheap flashlight and colored in the lens with a red marker. They cant see red. and try your best to stealthily net him out in the middle of the night after a midnight feeding. but it wont be easy.
 
big dave

big dave

Member
Hahaha.. Serously, tho, crabs are a pain to catch out of a tank. At the LFS I work at we had a large crab that was knocking all the corals over in out 180 reef. To catch him we covered the front and sides of the tank with tank backing, and made a trap out of one of those plastic containers you get chinese soup in and the top of a 2 liter soda bottle inverted inside the soup container. We baited it with a whole peel'n eat shrimp, waited a few hours and pulled it up. What we were surprised at was the siz of the thing!!! It was a shyface crab about 5in. across. Good luck tring to get urs out.
 
andymi

andymi

Member
Take a plastic pop bottle and cut off the top. Essentially you want to cut off the top 1/4 or so of the bottle including the bottle cap part. Put the cap portion of the piece you cut off inside the bottom piece. This essentially gives you a inverted pop bottle top. Put some good inside the main part of the bottle and set it inside the tank. Just leave it there and the crab should go in and not be able to come back out. You might also catch a few other things, so just be careful with it. :)
HTH
-Andy
 
donna2933

donna2933

Member
I had to catch some grabs out of my tank and I would turn the lights off and then later in the night I would shine a low beam flash light in the tank and reach in and catch them.I did this for several night until I had all of them out that I needed to take out.
 
iceburg98

iceburg98

Member
yeah, that's what i've been trying, but my light's too bright - i need to get a red cover for it...
and i'll definately have to try that pop-bottle thing - i just don't want my brittle star or anemone crab getting cought in there too... i'll just have to cover up the tank during the day and keep an eye on it...
 
fish head

fish head

Member
What I did was get a small hour glass vause. Bait it with silver sides, then place it 45 degree angle against a rock. The crabs are night scavengers, so place it in the tank before you goto bed. Then check in the morning. It works evry time. You just pull out the hermits, but those nasty looking crabs always seem to find the bait.
Hope that helps..
 
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