A crab trap?

[Europhyllia]

Last summer I ordered live mysis shrimp.
I received what seemed like a mix of mysis and crab larvae.
I was told the crab larvae was for the mysis to feed on. :confused:
In retrospect I think somebody just collected mysis on the shore in Florida and with it anything else of the same size...
The crab larvae quickly grew into little crabs. I fed most of them to the chickens. :angel:
When I found one little survivor a little while later I felt guilty and placed that one in the sump instead.
I had forgotten about that Florida shore crab when I moved one of my sump rocks into the display tank. I am now worried my shore crab hitchhiked into the display. :at_wits_end:
Too much rock to hunt for this crab. Is there an easier way to catch crabs such as a crab trap?

[Gilbert]

Seems like your just having a whole lot of bad luck.
Hope things change for you...
Do you know if the crab is reef safe?
Have you noticed anything being effected?

[cbianco]

I've heard that a glass with meat put inside of it, placed by the crab burrow, can function as a trap. Crab crawls in but can't crawl out. Don't know how well this works in practice.

I would think your best bet is to wait for him to crawl out and snipe him.

Snipe can be capture or kill, what ever your goal. Could put him in a specimin tank if he is interesting.

Christopher

[kkiel02]

I think its amazing that you raised crab larvae to adulthood. I thought this was pretty hard to do?

[Europhyllia]

not as hard as raising the mysis I paid for. lol
These were very fast growing and kind of triangular in shape.
I bet I took a picture. Let me look for it.
(Luckily I had them contained in my 'mysis' tank) until I started feeling guilty about feeding them to the chickens and evacuated the lone survivor to the sump.

found one: took this pic when I first noticed them :)

[JLiu]

Normally the glass / coke bottle traps work the only problem is keeping all of the other guys out of there.

[alton]

The problem with crabs is when they become completely nocturnal and they feed when eveyone is a sleep and fish start disappearing from your tank. I had this problem once. First couple of clownfish, purple tang, and when my bsjf disappeared I tore that side of the tank apart until I got him. He was a rock crab and I gave him to someone who had another, but his killed mine.

[Europhyllia]

I found a piece of blenny this morning. :(
I already lost a clam to that stupid crab.
How irresponsible for that mysid seller to send out that crab larvae!
How stupid of me to put it in the sump. :(

It's on now. I got a glass jar in the tank and I'll bait it with shrimp tonight. WIll go into town later to see if I can find any moonlight sort of thing

[Mr Cob]

Make sure the opening to your jar/trap is big enough for the crab but not big enough for the fish.....imagine catching him with the bait and then he sits in there for the next 6 hours while Mommy is sleeping and then your fish swim in....basically you set up a temporary killing den for your crab.

I would prefer to check the tank late one night with a red light and find out where he calls home.....then remove the rock he is in. I have used this same method several times.

Good luck.....sorry you have to deal with this. I know the feeling. Horrible that the vendor sold you mysis with these guys....I would call them.

[Europhyllia]

yikes. guess I'm heading into town for moon lights. Seems like my crab and my fish may be about the same size...

[Europhyllia]

Well this is weird!
I have a body but no missing persons! All fish are there.
We're not even in Atascosa County! Where does the body belong to? I don't know.
Still looking for a moonlight solution. Visited Polly's in search of one and got sidetracked and bought some new furry pets instead...