Toby and Fiddler Crab buddy
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:21 am
My full-grown C. Vallentini has a spotty track record about eating crustaceans. She always attacks Ghost Shrimp, but the one experience I had with harder-shelled prey ( a male Fiddler Crab ) was pretty inconclusive. She killed him all right, but it was a 7 day process, nipping off appendages and eyes during her crepuscular cycle ( meaning "dawn" and "dusk" hunting behaviour ). The crap eventually succumbed to systemic shock from too much damage and died. She never "cracked open" the body cavity to feast on the viscera. Anyway I added a big Fiddler 2 days ago to give her Tetraodondid "grill" a rasping down... She ate off one back limb immediately... And ever since then she has been following this dude all over the tank and guarding his butt like a trained service animal. I can't even put my face near him looking into the tank. When I try to do this, she swims between the crab and me, and Keels out, blocking my line of sight! Also, crab keepers out there probably know that Fiddlers always try to climb as high as they can in the tank... Well, she watches him climb as high as he can get, and then pushes under him until he grabs on to her... then she LIFTS HIM UP onto whatever he's stuck trying to get to!!! She also pushes him into corners and rubs her sides against the front of his body while she Keels and puffs out a tiny bit. The poor crab doesn't know what to make of this and neither do I, but it's proof positive to me that there's more going on in her head than instinctive A+B=C type behaviour. Also interesting to note, the baby Ocellarus Clown in there used to get punk'd by her as well and then one day after work I noticed that they were the best of buds. Other than being big on different water columns they still spend a lot of time hanging out. But I can tell the Clown doesn't care for mr. Crab. Anyways, Puffers do the weirdest things don't they? It's almost like I have a little toddler, not a tropical fish... 
