Crab Hitchhiker ID

Stalwart

Stalwart

Active Member
I was looking at my Emerald crab this morning and he had a bunch of these little critters running all over his body. They were red to brown in color, and moved very fast, like highway fast. They are to small to photo so no pic.

I would equate them to about the size of chiggers

I put a piece of dried seaweed in the tank by the glass to round up all the other crabs for inspection and they were all clean.

I gave the crab a fresh water rinse and it seemed to get them off of him. I captured a few and I am going to send them to my GF's lab tomorrow for photo under microscope.

But for now anyone got a clue?

Might be what was upsetting the Blenny yesterday since he like to eat stuff off of all the crustaceans in the tank.
 
Stalwart

Stalwart

Active Member
Well I looked at them under a microscope at a friends tonight. No pics till tomorrow.

They remind me of a pin point size horseshoe crab, minus the long tail, 2 antenna to the front, lots of legs, and what appeared to be some sort of sacks at the rear, was hard to tell under his little scope.

Anyone got a good link to microscopic, or at least very tiny, hitchhikers?
 
Stalwart

Stalwart

Active Member
OK, here are the little monsters that were pestering my Emerald crab.
 

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Stalwart

Stalwart

Active Member
When I notice these critters on the crab, I also noticed that he was turning white. Well, the last couple of nights, he was just kind of hanging out under some rocks. Last night he came out but didnt look to good, he was slow and pretty white. This afternoon, I found him dead :dead: (I am sure he is dead, it was a full shell, not a molt). I wonder if I slowly killed him with the freshwater dip the other day. He was only in the freshwater for at most 1 min.

He had plenty of hair algea to eat and the tank params are fine.

:dunno:
 
L

latuttle

Member
I've read that inverts are far more sensative to osmotic shock than fish. I didn't think one could FW dip shrimp/crabs successfully.

The reason why FW dips work is because the parasites can't stand the stress, but the fish can. In this case, I'm not sure that the crab was any sturdier than the bugs on him, I fear.
 
Stalwart

Stalwart

Active Member
Then I guess I did murder him. and here I thought I was doing him a favor, because they were bugging him pretty bad

Dont call :wit:

Oh wait a minute, the reef police hates crabs.
 
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