Stupid anemone crab (good awareness for future reference)

[fishoholic]

I just wanted to let people that sometimes an anemone crab can be a bad thing. About 2 weeks ago I bought an anemone crab. My RBTA has been a PITA since we got it. First it hated the light and wanted to hide under the rock. Then it expanded at night and shrunk during the day. Finally the last 2 months it was starting to do well. I felt bad that it didn't have anything to host in it (my perc.'s never showed any interest) and since it was still small I thought if it had a host maybe it would help the RBTA to grow and do better.

We ended up getting an anemone crab and I was so happy that the crab hosted right away. However as time went on it seemed like the crab was annoying the RBTA, the rbta started to move around. It stayed on the same rock (until today) but somedays it looked pretty bad and other days it looked ok. I figured the crab and the anemone were just working things out.

However I got home today and found the RBTA on the bottom of a different rock near the bottom of the tank in a dark spot. The rbta looks nearly dead and the anemone crab is MIA Part of me wants to try to move the rbta back to the spot it was at so it can get some light and hopefully do better, but right now it looks to fragile to try to move it. So for now I'm going to leave it where it is. Here's hoping somehow it makes a miraculous come back.

Moral of the lesson: Do not buy a big anemone crab to host in a little anemone.