Reef Friendly?

[entice59]

Well i know a lot of people say sally lightfoots and emeralds are reef friendly...
The lfs i went to, from a honest guy i trust, he said that he had complaints from some customers that their sally light foot actually ate some of their mushrooms and polyps, and actually killed some cleanershrimps while they were multting
when i was about to buy a sally light foot
for emeralds he said that his customers also stated that they had attacked some of their hermits and ate some mushrooms/polyps also
when my friend was about to buy a couple of emeralds
well atleast he was honest and didnt try to make a sale, neither me or my friend bought those things, but he also said "thats what the customers told me, it might not happen at all", that was enough to scare me from buying that sally
any feedback wiether this is true or not?

 

[entice59]

heh, i think i'll hold off on a sally, they are cool looking though, guess thats for my 55 gallon
didnt know you guys like to stay up late at night too sunday late night? shouldnt you guys be working/school?

 

[nm reef]

I keep several small/medium sized emeralds and one medium size sally in my reef...and to tell the truth I've heard a lot of horror stories about deamon crabs...but in all honesty I've never had a problem with any of the crabs. Now I have seen crabs in the midst of corals ... and the corals will close up...but its been my observation that the crabs are actually getting algaes and trash out from between the corals and not actually munching the corals . Also any crabs will be an opportunistic scavenger....any coral/fish in trouble and dieing will be pounced upon and eaten...just the nature of the beast. But I've never witnessed any of my crabs attack and munch healthy living flesh...

 

[entice59]

i guess its a gamble, i always here good things on the board about those crabs, it just shocked me when it the guy said it was actually bad for the tank

 

[clamps]

my sally is huge and doesent hurt anything as long as the rockwork is sucure.its about 4-5 inches tip to tip.iv had him around 12-14 months and he is worth 100 hermits to me, he is the best cleaning machine iv found

 

[chinnyr]

I've got a fairly large sally crab and he is a cleaning machine.I have never seen him stop.He leaves all the tank inhabitants alone.Sometimes at feeding he will go into a frenzie chasing for food and taunt the scooter blennie.Now,after a year,they know each other's limits and leave each other alone.I on the other hand have not had any luck with emerald crabs.I've added them to my tank 2 different times and they are dead by the next morning.I think(I know) my hawkfish is to blame.

 

[ags]

My sally, like everyone else said, is the ultimate cleaning machine. Damn thing never tires. Now the emeralds I kept were a different story. I have no concrete evidence but I lost many shrimp to something in my tank and suspiciously stopped losing shrimp once the one emerald crab I had died. So I now stay away from the emeralds.

 

[tigershark]

I purchased a couple emerald crabs for my tank, thinking they were good but I saw them raising their claws when my shrimp got near and I didnt want to lose my shrimp. So now the emeralds are in my sump.

 

[swilbs83]

I had a sallylightfoot and it would leap off of the rocks at my percula clowns, it ripped my feather duster and caused it to lose its crown......I had to completely dismantle my tank to get it out.....they are near impossible to catch in a tank with a good amount of live rock, very fast, and they are flat so they can slip out of your grasp....I hated mine and will no longer keep any type of crab in my tank.....Fact is, if you have rock dwelling fish, as most reefs do (grammas, blennies, firefish, etc) it is inevitable that any crab you have and your smaller fish will run into eachother...whether or not the crab will attack the fish depends on the crab and whether it is in a good mood or not...To me it isn't worth the risk......hermits and snails do a fine job of cleanup and leave my fish and corals alone, which is what is most inportant to me