Crabs

Thanks for the advice. This info brings two more questions to mind. 1. Will they eat diatoms? 2. Can I keep 2 or 3 in a 90 gallon tank?

 

what kind are you referring to?

 

Emerald crabs

 

you will need to have alot of algea for them to survive, and yes you can keep a couple, i would start with one if your tanks params are good though.

 

How old is your tank? diatom is normally one of the cycle stage algae blooms, and it will past
for lha, bryopsis kind, mexican turbos are great, and if your problem is with cyano there is one kind that will eat it, the cerith snail cyano is a bacteria that will kill most of inverts and snails, but the cerith will tolerate to a point and you will need several since they are small about an 1" to 1-1/4" and only come out when the lights are off

 

I will have to look into emerald crabs. I like HC's, but just caught my large guy eating some of my Green Star Polyps. Poopy face. So, he is enduring my pseudo-cycling nano with a three diatom eating turbo snails for company. The HC can clean the sand. That will be his job until I get him back to the LFS.

 

I have a good amount of algae. There is still a good amount of diatom left from the end of the cycle as well. However, if I get an emerald crab and he eats more than I expect, are there prepared foods that will sustain him?

 

You could try to spot feed him, but in the end, there will always be junk on the "sea bottom" for him to eat. Just stick to one. My hermit, until tonight, was dining and growing fairly well. Even needed to change shells. He shared, in a 75g, his home with 4 turbo snails, 5 small HC and three starfish as fellow cleaners

 

Love my emerald crab. I have about 4 in tank. Two have gotten huge, but do no damage. When they run out of algae to eat the eat anything else they can find. If they do not have enough algae they will turn white, but they are fine just not eating the green stuff that colors their shell.