steroid emerald

[mlm]

The guy at my LFS gave me this bug emerald crab at leat twice as big as the others with some huge claws. I am afraid if I put this thing in my tank it will eat some of my soft corals. Is this a valid fear? I have other small emerald crabs and the only eat stuff off the rocks but this one is HUGE. What should I do?

 

[flydan]

Hey,
Do NOT put that thing in your reef tank! I made that mistake and it ripped the he!! out of my tank. It wiped out a colony of mushrooms, started in on some star polyps and even ripped off part of a brittle star. It took me almost 24 hours to get them (I bought 2) out of my tank. Small emeralds are perfectly fine in a reef, but the big ones are very distructive!
HTH,
Dan'l

 

[wetone]

How big is too big??
I'm looking into an emerald now to help cleanup crew and I dont know what is a good size...