changing the rockscape

[Beverly]

Danny,

The longer I've kept reefs, the longer I've had to conclude that crabs are destructive:

- first tank we had was a 75g, back in the late 90s when I didn't know anything about anything if truth be told. So ignorant about reefing that I didn't even know there were such things as hitchhiker crabs, so crabs weren't really on my radar screen yet. However, bought a package clean up crew from J&L for that tank. It included blue legged crabs and a generous amount of extra shells for when the crabs outgrew their own shells. A few months after getting the hermits, began to notice there were lots of shells around, yet the stupid crabs would fight each other for the other guys' shells. Didn't get any more hermits after that.

- moved a few times, upgraded then downgraded tanks between moves. Ended up with a 7g bowfront nano for awhile because I couldn't go cold turkey. Bought a royal gramma and a sally light foot crab for the 7g. The gramma slept in the rockwork, until I found it in the clutches of the sally one morning. Thought the fish had to be sick/dead and the sally was just cleaning up. Bought a second gramma shortly afterward. Within a few days, the sally got that one too. Two grammas gone with one sally was too much of a coincidence and began researching sallies - known to be predators. Sally went back to the lfs and eventually upgraded tanks. Store-bought crabs definitely on my radar screen from then on.

- while researching sallies, found some material about hitchhiker crabs. Not all of them good. Hitchhiker crabs now on radar screeen. Started looking in my reefs for crabs at night with the flashlight. Found lots. Was able to trap a few, but others would not go near mysis bait. Just left them there as I didn't think they were much of a problem.

- had a valonia problem in my old 42g hex that got waaaaay out of control. Bought an emerald crab to take care of it. Crab ate a bit of valonia, but then began to eat my cherished red macroalgae as well as lots of coralline. Crab began to live in my galaxy coral and started eating it. Trapped it and took it back to the lfs.

- Went BB in our upgraded again tanks. Couldn't understand where all the detritus was coming from in all three low bioload tanks. Also couldn't understand why some rock was beautifully covered in coralline when patches of rock were bare and ornamental macroalgae was disappearing. Had to be the crabs that wouldn't go near the mysis bait. Hitchhiker crabs very high up on the radar screen again.

So, I went from not knowing hitchhiker crabs were in my tanks to having store-bought crabs destroying each other/fish/good algae to wanting to get every last freaking crab out of my tanks to reduce bioloads in our skimmerless, sumpless, fugless tanks.

Man, am I crabby after typing all that. Makes me want to tear those tanks down right now and get every last crab