pegasus
Well-Known Member
I bought a couple of pocilloporas damicornis (pink and green), and I scored a pair of commensal trapezia crabs with them. YAY!!! I was actually going to order a couple as I have read that they are good for the health of pocilloporas and acroporas, but the site I bought the pocilloporas from didn't have any in stock. I figured I'd get some later. During acclimation, I spotted one on the pink coral. I thought, "Okay, I'll put them close together and it can move from one to the other. I glued the corals to a rock and put it in the tank. A short time later, I discovered there was another crab on the green coral! Now I'm thinking, "Awesome!" My six line wrasses are very inquisitive about the crabs hiding in these corals, and they make passes around the corals trying to get at the crabs... but the crabs do a good job of fending them off with their sharp claws. Their role in the wild is to keep predators from eating the coral, and in return, they get to eat excess food off of the corals. It's also believed that the corals produce a fatty substance that the crabs eat. It's also believed that the crabs do eat some of the polyps, but if the colony is large enough, the crab won't inflict enough damage the coral to kill it. As these are fairly small colonies, I'll have to keep an eye out for excessive damage.
The pink one with the honeycomb pattern is a trapezia septata. The other one with the purple/black back is a trapezia cymodoce. Pictures were taken an hour after lights out, so polyps are retracted.
The pink one with the honeycomb pattern is a trapezia septata. The other one with the purple/black back is a trapezia cymodoce. Pictures were taken an hour after lights out, so polyps are retracted.