hitchhiker crab...

Last time live rock has been added to the tank it has been months. So this crab must have been in the tank for a while. No corals have died and everything has been fine with the tank. I have noticed it doesn't have red eyes or black tipped claws. Although it is hairy and looks like it has detritus all over it. I keep checking on it and it has been in the same holes in the same rock and seems to just be eating detritus. I tried the trap with a glass leaning against the rock it's in with the opening near the holes it is in and put some krill in the glass. It never went in the glass. Do you think another type of trap would work? My next step is to just take the whole rock out. I am not going to kill it nor am I going to put it in the sump. I am setting up a very small tank with random things taken from the main tank which will include this hitchhiker crab. Has anyone seen one of these before or ever had one before? I have looked at a couple crab ID webpages, and haven't had any luck with a clear match. I have taken a ton of photos of it and these are the closest most clear pictures I can get of it. I'm not really worried about it considering it has been in the tank for a while and had many chances to wreak havoc and it hasn't lol. Just want to see if anyone has had one before, know for a fact what type of crab it is, or can point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance

 

i think and im no expert but i think he might be a gorilla crab

 

does he have stuff attached to him? if so he is a decorator crab. thats my guess since he has the hair stuff.

 

I pulled the rock out and put it in a bucket with some of the tank water. Also put a glass in the bucket too with some krill in it, leaned it against the rock near the hole its in. Hope it works this time. As far as I can tell he doesn't have anything on him other than the fuzzy stuff. But its a really small crab and I can only see the front part of the top of its shell. I did notice that its right claw is larger than its left, and they both are pointy as opposed to rounded. The colors on the crab in the picture are exactly how I am seeing it with my eyes, sometimes with this camera it comes out a little different but somehow I got it right this time lol.

 

I got the crab out of the rock and its in its own little tank with some sand and rock rubble. It looks like a gorilla crab thats probably what it is. The water is kinda cloudy in the tank I put him in from the sand I put in there so when that settles I will take some better pictures.

 

i also agree with gorilla crab, personally i woulnd't put it back in the tank.

 

yep its prob a gorilla crab. dont put it back in the tank

 

Yea it's definitely not going back in the main tank. It's in a 1 gallon tank right now. I figured out where it came from, newest LFS near me gets them ALL THE TIME they said. They actually have one in their seahorse tank. I asked if they are going to get it out and they said no, it will leave them alone and that it's fine in there with them....
That just sounds like a bad idea waiting to happen to me lol. NOT getting rock from them again anymore lol!

 

good job getting him out lol