Best Way to Acclimate an Emerald Crab?
 

Hey all,


Picking up my first Emerald Crab today to take care of some Bubble Algae I have.

What's the best way to Acclimate him to the tank?

Thanks in advance.

Use the drip method....the simplest way to do that is to take a length of flexible airline tubing and have one end go into the tank that the crab will go into...and the other end drip water into the bag that the crab came in when you take it home from the fish store. Tie part of the tubing nearer to the end that will drip into the bag into a knot and tighten that knot so that water slowly drips out of the end into the bag. You'll tighten and loosen the know until you get to the point that the drip is slow...say, one drip every three secons or so.

You can get fancier and make this more convenient to operate...and you probably should because you ought to use this drip method every time you acclimate a fish or invert to your reef....by taking a piece of rigid airline tubing and heating it with a hair-dryer so that you can bend it into a "U" so that one end can can be attached to the flexible airline tubing and hang off the side of the reef tank when you do this. The know can be expended with if you insert an airline valve that can be tightened and loosened to adjust the drip easily and with precision. They sell these plastic airline valves at almost any decent fish store.

have the drip go into the bag the newly acquired fish or crab, etc. for about 40 minutes or so, so that the water from your reef mixes slowly drop by drop into the bag so that the specimen adjusts to your reef's water slowly like that.

I'd just drip acclimate it.

This guy just arrived and one of his "pinchers" is missing. He seems fine and healthy otherwise.

Is he gonna be ok or should I raise hell?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean "just arrived." Didn't you go to the fish store to get it? You said you were going to pick it up, so I guess it could have been an Internet purchase, and you didn't chose it yourself. Well, anyway, they will regenerate a pincer so it isn't critical. But, if it was an Internet purchase I'd be wary about ordering from the same vendor again.

The pincer will grow back at next molt.

Make sure his water and your water are within .001 of each other's salinity and he'll do fine.

i drip for 5-6 hours and then i place the bag in the sump overnight... open on the top and clipped to the side. you want to take time acclimating inverts.. they dont take well to rapid changes in water quality

Yes, it was an internet order. Sorry for the confusion.

UPDATE: I acclimated the emerald crab for 5 hours and put him in the tank right on top of the path of bubble algae. He has not really moved from this spot in the last 15 hours or so. He's definitely alive as I see his little legs moving around and his eyes looking out, but he really has moved less than 1/4 inch since yesterday.

Any reason for concern?

Not much. The only problem with long acclimations is ph change. Safest to use both a refractometer and a ph meter in acclimation and pay more attention to those than to the clock...and of course never allow his bag water to touch the water in your tank.

But he'll probably be fine. If there was a difference in iodine content in your water and his, that also could feel funny to him. Crabs, shrimp etc are sensitive to that. Don't try to dose it, in a 30.

You might want to do your weekly water change soon to be sure trace elements are up to snuff in your tank. Inverts rely on those more than fish do.

That's really interesting because the SOB's at the purchasinng website's advice was "just dump him in the tank, he'll be fine"

Some people should not be allowed to give advice if they don't know the answer.

I ended up doing steady water drips over the course of several hours which I thought was the safest approach beased on all your advice.

I really hope he'll be ok

who did you buy from so we can beware.

Im going to guess saltwaterfish.com? they have a lot of "just dump them in" acclimation guides

Emeralds are extremely tough. He would have been fine dumping him in. I acclimate no more than an hour and have never had a loss. There is a lot of info on here about long acclimations and the dangers of pH swings. Once the bags are opened to the room air, pH can change quickly.

Radiohead got it on the money, but i dont like badmouthing an entire company when it just could have been one inept employee giving what he thought was good info.

i guess ive gotten lucky in the years ive been doing salt. I always just float the bag and add some tank water. Let it float for a hour and net em and throw em in. Never had a loss yet with any invert or fish this way. Heck i do this with high stress fish as well and they turned out fine.

There's no reason to be careful about acclimating, even if it is for a long time but, I'd agree that we often overdo it on the side of being safe. I do think that it is best to really take your time with a linckia or fromia starfish but when it comes to most fish or inverts, a relatively short time...even a half hour...is not jeopardizing them.