Parasitic Crab Help

[Zakary2003]

I know this is a forum for fish diseases, but I recently bought some snails, hermit crabs, and a sea urchin. One of them came with a parasitic crab. I found the little guy wandering around the sand bed, posted about it on hitchhiker ID here, and was told some possible IDs. I added it back to the tank and it tried to climb inside a live nassarius snail's shell. I think it is some kind pea crab. Has anyone delt with this before? Do I need to treat the snails somehow? Since adding the new infected snails, I've noticed one of my astrea snails and two of my Mexican turbo grazere are slow and slightly unresponsive, just like the nassarius snail is after removing the parasitic crab. I noticed this before I found the crab. Could this crab be the cause? I'm not exactly a reefkeeping pro, but this definitely caught me off guard. There are some new pics attached here, but more/better lighting pics in the linked thread above.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I know this is a forum for fish diseases, but I recently bought some snails, hermit crabs, and a sea urchin. One of them came with a parasitic crab. I found the little guy wandering around the sand bed, posted about it on hitchhiker ID here, and was told some possible IDs. I added it back to the tank and it tried to climb inside a live nassarius snail's shell. I think it is some kind pea crab. Has anyone delt with this before? Do I need to treat the snails somehow? Since adding the new infected snails, I've noticed one of my astrea snails and two of my Mexican turbo grazere are slow and slightly unresponsive, just like the nassarius snail is after removing the parasitic crab. I noticed this before I found the crab. Could this crab be the cause? I'm not exactly a reefkeeping pro, but this definitely caught me off guard. There are some new pics attached here, but more/better lighting pics in the linked thread above.

It does look like a pea crab. I would not worry about these at all. They steal food from the invertebrates, but are not true parasites in the sense of killing their host. Now, if you snail were to die, the crab is going to likely feed on it, but that doesn't mean it caused the snails death.

 

[Zakary2003]

It does look like a pea crab. I would not worry about these at all. They steal food from the invertebrates, but are not true parasites in the sense of killing their host. Now, if you snail were to die, the crab is going to likely feed on it, but that doesn't mean it caused the snails death.

The snail was still alive. The crab was obviously trying to burrow into the shell. It was basically using its claws to pull the snail's foot out while trying to squeeze into the snail's shell. It was not feeding on a dead snail, it was clearly trying to climb inside a living one.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I know this is a forum for fish diseases, but I recently bought some snails, hermit crabs, and a sea urchin. One of them came with a parasitic crab. I found the little guy wandering around the sand bed, posted about it on hitchhiker ID here, and was told some possible IDs. I added it back to the tank and it tried to climb inside a live nassarius snail's shell. I think it is some kind pea crab. Has anyone delt with this before? Do I need to treat the snails somehow? Since adding the new infected snails, I've noticed one of my astrea snails and two of my Mexican turbo grazere are slow and slightly unresponsive, just like the nassarius snail is after removing the parasitic crab. I noticed this before I found the crab. Could this crab be the cause? I'm not exactly a reefkeeping pro, but this definitely caught me off guard. There are some new pics attached here, but more/better lighting pics in the linked thread above.

Looks like a pebble crab