Kinda made me sick, but the boulder method in a baggie it is was :cry: :cry: :cry:

Poor little guy didn't even see it coming. Fast for the crab, but definitely not easy on the human :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

Just hope the CSI team doesn't get wind of the corpse in our trash can :eek:

darnit! no! no more crab killing! :evil: although i understand that there were no alternatives... still a bummer to have to do that though. looks like i'm going to end up with a tank stocked with everyone elses rejects when i actually get set up.

Well, you didn't even have to do it, I did :cry: Not the most pleasant task to do before breakfast, either, but it was the most humane way of doing it.

teevee, you wouldn't have wanted that crab in your reef if you saw the way it was munching on the star polyp frags I'd just put in that nano. Good thing I checked the tank before going to bed, cuz I'm sure that frag and other one would have both been decimated by morning :evil:

Dang, now I've got a headache over all this :sad:

Everybody take care.

I've got to say, it's bold of you to detail this whole process, one that many (all?) of us have been through but few talk about openly, or admit to. Part of managing the care of the animals we end up with can be unpleasant yet necessary - sometimes 'pests' must meet their end at our hands.

Thanks for being open and honest, even when the end result would prove unpopular with the very sensitive. And thanks to respondents for lack of flames.

Cheers,

obviously it's a shame that a critter that made it several thousand miles, was banged around in a dark box, thrown into water that probably wasn't what he was used to, and all this multiple times, only to be smashed with a rock, but that's life isn't kinda. kinda ironic in a sense, we pay money for some creatures and try to kill others. :confused: i'm sure i'll run into this dilemma soon enough.

I would have probably first tried to see if an LFS would take it, but, that's just me.

Congratulations Bev, that is a beautiful Alpheid shrimp...I wish it was mine :cry: As far as the crab goes, it is a Mithrax spp. (I didn't read all the posts as I don't have much time, so if this info is redundant then sorry..) and it is definately going to have a negative impact on your reef at some point...most crabs do.

Stephen

In my honesty, I admit I was looking to others for help finding solutions to our reef problems. The shrimp was saved, thank goodness, but the crab had a very different fate :cry:

There's a deep sadness in me today over this event :cry: In some sort of honour to the crab, I did my weekly maintenance on all three of our reefs, the 42 gal hex, and the 7 gal and 2.5 gal nanos. Cleaning the tanks and filtration systems, and changing water was done with great reverence to the dead crab, and to the creatures I cherish so much who are all still alive and well.

Thank you to everyone who helped ID the hitchhikers we found. Thanks, too, to the folks who offered suggestions as to what to do with the unwanted crab.

FWIW, I had a chance to make it over to the lfs after my appointments this afternoon and spoke to the staff about what they'd have done with the crab if they had taken it. Yes, they would have fed it to "Bubba" the Picasso trigger. So which fate would any of you have chosen for the crab? The rock or the trigger? Right now neither choice sits very well with me, but something had to be done. So I did it. :cry: :cry: :cry:

Thank you all again.

if bubba is the trigger at AI, i would have chosen to feed the crab to the trigger. that guy needs a snack, he nearly took my finger off last time i was there. :biggrin:

Yup, that's the trigger.

What the heck are you doing with your fingers in a trigger tank :eek:

If we're able to catch the second crab we saw in the 42 last night, if time permits, I'll take it to AI. One way or the other, that crab'll be a goner too :frown: