This will probably spark some controversy. Can you please share your experience if you have kept sally lightfoot crabs in your reef tank? I have a tank full of soft corals and LPS corals. Have your sally's ever eaten any inhabitants? Mine is fairly large now! I have never lost anything to my knowledge, but get worried when people say they're vicious. She's gotten pretty big and her body is about the size of a quarter. And she's maybe a couple inches or more side to side with her claws. Should I be concerned??? Should I foreclose her home and find her another? Lol. I've had her in there for a few months and I don't think she's eaten anything.
Sally Lightfoot Crab
- Thread starter OHreefer
- Start date
shark32
Active Member
Hi,
I have a sally light foot named Bolt, who bothers no one. He is about 3 1/2 inches (including claws). I make sure to give him food everytime I feed the tank though. My cleaner shrimp will sometimes take food out of his claws and he still does not do anything. They say everything has his/her own personality, so if yours has not bothered anything as of yet, I wouldn't worry. Good luck!
I have a sally light foot named Bolt, who bothers no one. He is about 3 1/2 inches (including claws). I make sure to give him food everytime I feed the tank though. My cleaner shrimp will sometimes take food out of his claws and he still does not do anything. They say everything has his/her own personality, so if yours has not bothered anything as of yet, I wouldn't worry. Good luck!
shark32
Active Member
He will eat anything I give him, but his favorites are pieces of clam and silversides. I also bought pygmy angel formula by ocean nutrition that has a mix of meat/sponges/algae and he, my two emerald crabs, porcelian crab and shrimp like that as well. They all buzz around until they get a piece of that. 
shark32
Active Member
As soon as I put food in the tank, he usually comes right out on top of whatever rock he is hanging out on and I spot feed him. I use 12 inch long tweezers to give him the food. I have an indigo dottyback that is like a vaccuum and eats alot of what sits on my sand too. I try to spot feed any of my non fish when I feed the tank. Both of my shrimp (a cleaner and a coral banded), my porcelian crab, my serpent star (who doesn't come out just sticks two arms out from under his rock) and my zebra hermit crab all wait for food too. I figure if I keep everyone happy they will be good neighbors to each other! I like to use the clam and silveside pieces for him becuase it's a chunk that I can actually see him picking on for awhile. Whenever I gave him mysis, it was gone very quickly. I know that they get a bad rap, but we love to watch ours. He is always out and about and not afraid when my kids stand right in front of the tank.
Thanks for the tip. All my creatures come out too as well, except for the Sally Lightfoot! He's not always in view, and he hasn't come out when I feed. Everything else does though...the cleaner shrimp, the yellow watchman goby, clowns, chromis and all the hermit crabs so crazy. Maybe I should clip a clam or something to the inside of the tank and wait for it to eat? He's always picking algae off the rocks everywhere...so he does some good maintenance!