Has this happened to you?

We have had our tank up and running for about a month now and this morning the beloved dog needed outside a little earlier than normal and as I passed by the tank I noticed something on the sand that didnt look right, so I put the lights on and low and behold I had a krab. A small one might I add but he was very busy cleaning rocks and then the light came on and he skittered away to a hole. Have never seen him before and have not seen him yet today. I called the hubby who is on the road working and he says he didnt buy one. Has this happened to anyone else?
Will he ever come out during the day?

Thanks for your input.. Sharon

 

Yes, the are common hitchhikers on rock. They can live for quite sometime and are very hardy. They are also a pain in the A** if they are aggressive and like to eat fish and/or corals... If you can get a picture, I am sure someone could help you identify it.

Jim

 

Yes, this has happened to me more than once and is one of the reasons why I don't use liverock anymore. Too many pesky hitchhikers

 

if you don't use liverock what is it you use?

 

It is very small from the size of the hole that it ran into. Have not had a chance to get a picture of it but the camera is standing by and fully charged.
Funny how after all this time I have never seen it but the one time.
With any luck this will be some kind of a cleaner and not something bad...

Thanks for the input...Sharon

 

Sorry yes I have 20lbs of live rock

Sharon

 

Yes it is normal to get many life forms like crabs etc that come from your live rock. Hopefully that crab is not harmful, as i know how much of a pain it is to remove pests.

I myself had many peacock mantis shrimp come in my live rock which were a pest to get rid of. My bird-nosed wrasse took care of all but one really big one, which I had to chase around the tank and wait for it to hide in a rock. I drowned the bastard in fresh water, but after lots of trouble and effort.

Hopefully yours is apart of the cleanup crew.

Breed

 

Just for fun get a flashlight with a red lens and check out your tank in the middle of the night. You will be amazed.

 

I use dead, base rock seeded with sand from a trusted system. I can't say that I don't use ANY live rock but I certainly won't use any that doesn't come from a trusted source like on-line distributors or a fish store. The 180 that we recently set up was seeded with sand from our 46 gallon hex and a piece of rock from my fiancee's existing system. That system was also established using dead, base rock.

 

The flashlight is a great idea. I will have to run down to ace hardware today and get one, thanks. I find it hard to believe that it has any kind of shell as the hole is the size of the tip of my pinkie finger.
We got our live rock from LFS.

Sharon