Hitchiking crab

[Live Rock]

How do you catch a crab that hitchhiked on my LR?
I tore my tank apart yesterday to catch it, but it slid into its convenient hiding place as usual.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[coolhandgoose]

They are hard to catch unfortunately.
What I've done is stick the rock in my sump and wait for lights out since that's when they seem to come out. Once it's out I pick up the rock and flick him off.
Other people have used crab traps which is basically putting food in the bottom of a glass and put the glass next to it's hole. So when it goes after the food it'll fall into the glass.

 

[Mr.Diggler]

I've been trying to catch a red eyed bastard hitchhiker crab for years. Good luck.

 

[Waddi]

I've been trying to catch a red eyed bastard hitchhiker crab for years. Good luck.

hahah giving the vote of confidence!!
I caught mine by grabbing him, although, it was only a wierd decorator crab that was, not really anything like a decorator, but he did stick algae on his back.

 

[AmberSunrise]

This is what I did with my live rock.

I set up a bucket of hyper-salinity water pretty much put in enough salt for it to be at the top of the meter. 1.30ish

I got out the piece I knew it was on and I dipped it in the bucket for about 30-45 seconds.

All sorts of crabs and worms and pods came flying off the rock and into the water. I poured the critters through a fish net and then put them in a bucket of regular salinity water and picked out what I wanted to keep.

Nothing died and I took the unwanted ones to my LFS who has a huge sump full of misfit creatures LOL

 

[Amlique]

Nothing died and I took the unwanted ones to my LFS who has a huge sump full of misfit creatures LOL

I like this part of the story.