Check this out...

I was moving things around, getting ready for a new order coming. While I do this, I look at each coral individual since I have to pick it up, might as well. Well I notice a weird growth on the side of this devils hand that came in from a coral farm that looked like crap. On closer inspection, it was a crab! The crab was covered in mucus from the coral so it blended in almost perfectly. When I got the coral, I dipped it, and thought it might recover. Well it kept getting worse over the period of a month or two, and I dipped a few times during that time. Never noticed the growth on the side of it. With the crab being covered in the mucus of the coral explains why dipping didnt kill it. but yeah, here are the pics.

First pic you can make out its a crab cause the coral is on its side where I left it to get the camera.


Second pic is a close up of it right before I removed it.


Third pic, you can make out the mucus around it. Its in a red bowl so its color would stand out for the pic.



Just goes to show that dipping your coral doesnt always kill pests on them. I caught this in a quarantine tank. Cant imagine what it would have done in a soft coral tank.

 

man even without the mucus he's still a really well disguised lil bugger

 

have you identified the little heath'en ? what's it feed on ?
Ive never seen any thing like it.

Makes ya wonder "what ya don't see" in our tanks huh ?

 

looks like a porcelain crab to me but I'm not sure with as many crab species as there are

 

The blue you see in that one photo was from the flash. Its skin is almost see through, and the flash really shows that. It also doesnt have the filter feeding arms or whatever they are called.


Its definetly not reef safe, it was eating the devils hand coral.

 

Good catch!

Looks like a nasty little devil.

Probably caught him right after molt...

ugly. --- I don't like crabs...any crabs...except in cooking pot.

:-/

 

ew! thats so fasinating and discusting all in one. glad you got the bugger

 

How freakin weird is that!

 

Sounds like a good candidate for research then. IMO put him in a ice cube tray and toss his ass in the freezer, then bring the cube he's in slowly back up to tank temp and see if he survives

If he does, toss him in the sump cause he's to tough to kill and if you flush him he may ruin the entire eco-system


or you could just toss him in with a mantis shrimp