PR_Reefers
Reefer 4 Life!
Monday I bought a sweet new baby fungia wich I though had good potential! It showed up as a hitchhiker on another coral rock.
I happily took it home and buried the plug the sand. It opened quickly I even fed it later that day. Tuesday I come home to find only the plug buried in the sand!:beat_shot: ...what the heck I looked carefully and I saw a crab hidden on the rocks near the scene of the crime! I had seen this guy before actually I've had him since I setup the tank about >3 years ago!! came as a hitchhiker on my live rock! It was tiny at the time and I never noticed any problems with him so I never bothered to find out what it was. Thing is he usually hangs out on the other side of the tank so I became suspicious. A quick search and I i'd it as a Gorilla Crab..:choler: ..weather he was or not responsible the hunt was on!!...who knows how many other corals he's managed to kill that I just assumed had died over the years.
I knew that unless I wanted to dismantle my tank I had to use some sort of trap... so I came up with this very simple one that I managed to do in about 2 min. with things I had laying around in my room!!
-clean mayo jar
-plastic mesh
-2 tie wraps
-1 shell
Wrapped the mesh around the jar and held it with a tie-wrap and that's it!!
When lights went out I stuck a cube of krill inside the shell and held it with another tie-wrap put the shell in jar and placed it top side up against the rock where the suspect was last seen. I knew if he was the one causing troubles he'd be determined enough to climb the mesh with the help of the rocks to get to the food!
Wednesday even before the lights were on I check to see if the trapped had worked and.... I find this!!....
....
...
..
:hammer:....Just kiddin....:tongue:
So..next came interrogation!!
Why you little...*$%&*#*@*# DID YOU TAKE MY CORAL???
At fist he felt intimidated..
... but still would not talk!! so I had to use brute force!!
and he fought back!!... they pack a punch for their size btw... anyways he never talked... was he guilty?
:misdoubt:
Goofing aside I thought it might be good to share this bc it's simple, effective (on first attempt for me at least:tongue: hehe) and while I was looking to id this guy I read about so many different things people had done to remove them which seemed much more time consuming hard or dangerous, like hunting them with a spear and red flashlight at night, taking tanks apart, dosing interceptor in high doses, heck... even using electricity to bomb them out!!check it out... I guess it's clever but... I wouldn't try it
crab fishing‏ - YouTube
So maybe loosing my fungia will turn out to be helpful to someone else and if that's the case then it's not all bad!:smile:
So have you had any problems with a gorilla crab?? Share your story I'd like to hear what these guys have done?
I happily took it home and buried the plug the sand. It opened quickly I even fed it later that day. Tuesday I come home to find only the plug buried in the sand!:beat_shot: ...what the heck I looked carefully and I saw a crab hidden on the rocks near the scene of the crime! I had seen this guy before actually I've had him since I setup the tank about >3 years ago!! came as a hitchhiker on my live rock! It was tiny at the time and I never noticed any problems with him so I never bothered to find out what it was. Thing is he usually hangs out on the other side of the tank so I became suspicious. A quick search and I i'd it as a Gorilla Crab..:choler: ..weather he was or not responsible the hunt was on!!...who knows how many other corals he's managed to kill that I just assumed had died over the years.
I knew that unless I wanted to dismantle my tank I had to use some sort of trap... so I came up with this very simple one that I managed to do in about 2 min. with things I had laying around in my room!!
-clean mayo jar
-plastic mesh
-2 tie wraps
-1 shell
Wrapped the mesh around the jar and held it with a tie-wrap and that's it!!
When lights went out I stuck a cube of krill inside the shell and held it with another tie-wrap put the shell in jar and placed it top side up against the rock where the suspect was last seen. I knew if he was the one causing troubles he'd be determined enough to climb the mesh with the help of the rocks to get to the food!
Wednesday even before the lights were on I check to see if the trapped had worked and.... I find this!!....
....
...
..
:hammer:....Just kiddin....:tongue:
So..next came interrogation!!
Why you little...*$%&*#*@*# DID YOU TAKE MY CORAL???
At fist he felt intimidated..
... but still would not talk!! so I had to use brute force!!
and he fought back!!... they pack a punch for their size btw... anyways he never talked... was he guilty?
:misdoubt:
Goofing aside I thought it might be good to share this bc it's simple, effective (on first attempt for me at least:tongue: hehe) and while I was looking to id this guy I read about so many different things people had done to remove them which seemed much more time consuming hard or dangerous, like hunting them with a spear and red flashlight at night, taking tanks apart, dosing interceptor in high doses, heck... even using electricity to bomb them out!!check it out... I guess it's clever but... I wouldn't try it
crab fishing‏ - YouTube
So maybe loosing my fungia will turn out to be helpful to someone else and if that's the case then it's not all bad!:smile:
So have you had any problems with a gorilla crab?? Share your story I'd like to hear what these guys have done?
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