Thanks for all the good advice guys!!

the tank is about 3 months old now and i would say its moderately stocked. basically what i am looking for is for something to help take care of the green and brown algae (mostly on the glass....and, i am guilty of using tap water but have recently started using RO water... hopefully that helps) and maybe something to sift through the sand (about 3-4" deep)


Palmer... i have only a single emerald crab and he has been quite friendly with everyone. i usually only see him when the lights are out and he happily picks away at the rock.

Friend of mine had a really big emerald... largest Ive ever seen. We actually watched as he took down his yellow tang. Luckily we were there to rescue it or it would have been lunch or late night snack rather.

Order 2 or 3 hermits. They are fun to watch and on tenth the snails they recommend and the ones advised here.

I told you LFS CUC packages are a ripoff. Spend the money you save on a neat fish or coral.

Are you sure it was a Mithrax Emerald? Maybe the crab was misidentified. Unless the tang was like 2" long, the crab would have to be awfully large to catch it!!

Definitely a Mithrax Emerald. We called him Popeye as his his claws were big. His carapace was probably 2" across easy.
The yellow Tang was approx 3-1/2". Never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it. :eek:

Wow, never seen one that big. I did make sure to pick out the smallest little Emeralds when I bought mine. They are still less than an inch across the carapace I think.

Got my tiger cuc from red coral and it has helped and i have had no problems model citizen.