crab ID ?

anybody know what kind of crab this is, dont have a pic yet but hes about two inches across, half inch claws and its jet black w/ white hair on the claws. Tried to get him with a net and didnt come close. It seems to be only eating the algea off the glass but I dont really like him in there.

 

Keep your eyes open for it to monitor its feeding habits! You don't want it to eat corals, if you have them or other livestock for that matter.
Never seen a black crab before, but sound like a member of the mithrax family!

 

Thanks for the response. Mithrix, are they bad? do they eat sps corals?

 

Trust no crab you have to ask about I can't see a picture but it myself I have seen so called safe crabs decimate a tank eating fish coral linkas anything they could catch and in that box of water you can run but you can't hide.. I myself would have tossed it if I can't I.D it . I;ll look in my old files to see if i can find anything that sound like the description.

 

It's not fair to judge all crabs as predators of the coral reef. There's a lot of harmless crabs out there you can have in your reef. But, the bad thing about crabs is that they develop bad eating habits. When algae is depleating, they will eat anything else available and that includes coral. Some classify them as "opportunistic omnivores." Just keep an eye out and you can catch him with traps. They will fall for almost anything. They are sly though, so dont expect to catch him right off the bat.

 

I haven't seen that kind of judgment, however, I too would remove any crab that I wasn't familiar with. I'm the "better safe than sorry" kind of hobbiest It's usually easy for me to get rid of the undesirable crab by either putting it in a sump or giving it away to my club members.

 

[/IMG]

 

sorry, thats him. seems to eat the algea. I should try to get him out?
thanks, Wil

 

I would even if it's just for the purpose of taking a better picture of the crab for identification purposes.