Gorilla crab?

[SaltyDawg]

A couple days ago I looked in the tank and 3/4 of my green tree was gone. The next day almost all of my pulsing xenia was gone. Today i see a new cave under one of the rocks and shined a light in there and something moved. I reached in there with a pair of tweezers and pulled out this guy. I looked up gorilla crabs and saw no 2 alike. The term was used loosely for any hairy crab thats a carnivore. The funny thing is....it looks like a gorilla. Is this indeed what this is and would it be responsible for eating my corals.

[techguy]

Looks like Donkey Kong!!!

Glad you got him out of your tank, I have never even heard of "gorilla" crabs.

[rayme07]

He actually looks more like a teddy bear crab and they are aggressive and not reef safe. Here is a link: http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden...3+4&ddid=90622

If I was you I would just bring him to your LFS and see if you could get some store credit for him or just stick him in your sump. I hope this helps.

[SaltyDawg]

I posted pics on a couple other forums also. Some say teddy,some say gorilla,some say teddy=gorilla. All say that black pointy claws and hairy is bad. He is gone now so hopefully the corals grow back. I'll take a couple pics later to show how much damage he did in one night.

[CarmieJo]

Oh, I am glad you got him out of your tank! As long as there is a little left your corals should all grow back.

[SaltyDawg]

I wish I could have kept it but I cant. Cool looking critter. I took this pic when I first noticed some damage around the base.


The next morning


Here is the green tree a couple months ago


Overnight this happened


Do you think there is enough of them left to come back?

[treeoflife]

My wife says that if your little friend there had been caught doing that in our tank she feed him the the gulls

[PapaMcEuin]

I would say they should grow back, but then again I have never had a xenia survive in my tank. As usual, I am an odd ball.... (I have been growing acro's from frags and bunch of other little stuff and that under 2 10K-K T5's and 1 420nm PC in a nano.)

[CarmieJo]

I think that they will probably regenerate.

[SaltyDawg]

Looks like you guys are right. They are both growing faster than I expected. I love watching the xenia,dont know what it is about it. I took a couple pics to show progress.
The xenia has perked up nicely and has a bunch of little polyps at the base.


The green tree has a bunch of new sprouts also



Just for kicks...here is my latest addition


And finally...I've NEVER done this because I suffer from tank envy so no laughing...here's a FTS

[rayme07]

What are you talking about??? Your tank looks awesome and has some great looking mature corals.