[Rob]

Am curious what others have experienced with the following crabs. Perhaps there are others to recommend.

Would be nice to get them eating algae that is too hard to strip out, while I'm busy getting nitrates and phosphates undercontrol.

However, as they can be opportunistic feeders, I don't want them stripping out the sandbed fauna, because it's more tasty!

Opinions?

From the Premium Aquatics stock list:

• Baha Red Leg Hermit
  Red Scarlets
  Electric Blue Hermit
  Purple Encrused Mex Turbo
  Green Emerald
  Sally Lightfoot
  Red Scarlets
  Baha Red Leg Hermit
  Black White Hermit
  Arrow Crab

The last guy, the Arrow Crab, wasn't on the PA list, but I included him because he was offered to me free by somebody else with a reef tank... just wanted to do a "background check"

Thanks!

[Biomanjcs72]

No on the Arrow crab and Sally lightfoot, Arrow crabs will grab fish out of the water (seen it done, not pretty). And sally lightfoots have been seen munching on various corals. (as well as killing snails, shrimg, etc.)

[mastaJ]

I haven't seen my emerald crab do anything wrong. Except bulldose.

Arrow crabs eat bristleworms pretty good.

I haven't had very many hermits.

HTH...

[Rin]

Skip the crabs and get snails. It's much easier on the fauna.

[organicreefer]

true crabs =slf ,mithrax ,etc.,make good algea grazers when small but as they grow they can present a risk to fish /corals.
arrow crabs will eat all youre worms( and feather worms) and pods,and may decide to spear a fish too.
as for hermits,some people report hermits attacking snails,but i havent experienced this,at least not on a scale that i could notice.
if you want to keep hermits i can reccomend three for sure that i can practically 100% guarantee(based on my exp./what ive read/and what ive heard other people say) will not cause a problem:

good ol' red leggers: paguristes cadenati
left hander's:calcinus laevimanus
and equal handed hermits:clibinarius tricolor.

in addition to the above i have blue leggers ( ) micro hermits(ipsf)
HTH

[scubadude]

I have a few green mithrax and some very small blue legged crabs are usually fine with me, I have seen the mithrax in the acropora but it doesnt appear to be harming it. Maybe a couple of porcelain crabs too

[FishKid]

I have 5 red scarlets, 5 black and whites and 1 electric blue

never seen any of them kill snails, i guess thats becuase my sandbed has many shells of various sizes, in fact i frequently see them switching into different shells, as well as well fed with all the algae and fauna i have.

the scarlets can be aggresive amongst themselves, the black and whites are pretty cool, and ive seen the blue electric eat every kind of algae i've had (hair, sargasum, bryopsis, slime, and unfortunatly coralline)

[asmith]

I am in the process of removing all of the crabs from my tank. My Blue legs eat every snail in sight. The scarlets are not as aggressive, but they still grab a snail once in awhile. The one Left handed hermit is a gladiator and is always one of the first to join the dog pile during a fight for a new shell. We had an emerald crab, but it really didn't do much to help out the algae problem. He would eat it, but it grew on his back as fast as he was eating it off the rocks. It kind of reminded me of the middle aged man walking down the beach who really should be wearing a shirt (Or at least shave his back). I am going to limit my cleanup crew to snails, pods and worms.

Andrew