emerald crab questions

[gene22]

I woke up this morning and found my cleaner shrimp in pieces. The only this that I have in my tank that could do this is an emerald crab. Is this normal? Does anyone want a free emerald crab?

 

[RonD2008]

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, I had the cleaner shrimp for 4 months, it was pretty big. I suspect it was one of my 4 emerald crabs.

 

[Gardiner]

Are you sure it was the actual scleaner shrimp? When they shed they leave an old exoskeleton that looks like a dead shrimp.

 

[marine mike]

I bet what you found was a moulted cleaner shrimp shell. I doubt that an Emerald Crab would or could do that to a cleaner IMO. Look later for your cleaner after he comes out of hiding as they will hide for a while after moulting.

 

[Shenlung]

If he is a cleaner killer, I'd love another emerald crab....but make sure it's just the cleaner molt first, it looks exactly like the cleaner shrimp died.

 

[JayM]

I think it probably is a molt as well, but emeralds can become quite large, and then they could give a cleaner a hard time.....here is a ginormous one I caught in my tank recently

http://www.bostonreefers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77220

 

[jbishop]

I also think molt.

 

[gene22]

I hope it was a molt

I hope it was a molt. I only found pieces not the whole body.

 

[RonD2008]

I know that mine was not a molt, the cleaner shrimp used to hang out on the mag float or the heater all the time, nowhere to be found now.

 

[gene22]

You were right!

I came home from work and found the shrimp! It was just its molt. I was thinking that the emerald crab had an expensive meal.

 

[Anthony1238]

My Clearner and Coral Banded molt like every 3 weeks. I will never get use to it, always makes me panic. I actually have to fish out another molt right now.

 

[afboundguy]

I came home from work and found the shrimp! It was just its molt. I was thinking that the emerald crab had an expensive meal.

Glad to hear it. My first thought was molting as IMO it would be hard for an emerald crab to catch a cleaner. My cleaner is one fast shrimp!

 

[FOXYB]

IME if you find an exoskeleton its a molt if it gets eaten you wont find evidence

glad to hear it was just shedding

 

[Fazulka]

Check out my avatar. I thought my blood shrimp duplicated itself.