Why are my hermits dying?

[philtheso]

I added 4 electric blue hermits to my tank less than a week ago upon completion of its cycle. Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates have consistently read 0 since then and temperature has remained stable between 80-81 degrees. I floated the bags to temperature acclimate and then set up a drip line for about an hour at 2-3 drops per second. One hermit was up and about immediately and has been doing fine since then, but the other three haven't fared so well. In fact I didn't see any of them move in person, though it seems that they did (just a bit, maybe a few inches) overnight.

 

Today, one of the three left its shell and just flipped over on my sand bed, front and center of my tank. I can see its antennae and legs moving a bit but he flips right back over if I try to right him up. The other two are definitely dead. The first hermit though is doing just fine eating mysis right out of my tweezers.

 

Any idea what's causing the others to die off? For what it's worth, I did see the healthy hermit munching on a hermit crab leg, though it might have already been dead before he went to town. I also have plenty of empty shells laying about.

[12_egg_Omelette]

Do you have any algae for them to eat?

[ndrobey]

Sounds like they arrived dead/dying.

[CJJon]

Brand new tank with zero nitrate? Did you ever get nitrite and nitrate readings during your cycle? How long was the cycle and are you reading any ammonia now?

 

When I started keeping hermits, I freaked out when I found my first molted shell. I would have sworn there was meat inside the shell and the crab was dead. it wasn't. Maybe it is a molt you are seeing? Unless it is dead or dying, it is very unusual to see them outside of a shell for even a second or two.

[philtheso]

The algae isn't abundant but there is enough of a film covering the rocks for a few hermit crabs (no other clean up crew in tank yet). The tank cycle went as expected, with an ammonia spike followed by a nitrite spike and a brief nitrate spike. It took approximately a month to cycle.

 

Also, the crabs seemed to be doing fine when I was drip acclimating. Could it be my temperatures? I do live in a warm area and my tank fluctuates between 80-81 though it can climb as high as 81.5 during particularly hot days.

[12_egg_Omelette]

Do you see any shell rot? Are the bodies eaten or just dead? Do you have snails as well? Maybe it could be as simple as starvation.

 

Reef cleaners suggest that you do not drip acclimate them, but simply float for 15 minutes and then add them to your tank.

[Gooburz]

Need to make sure they are alive when you are getting them from the LFS, make them grab active ones or you could just be getting an empty shell or a dead ones. Also very common for Hermits to kill each other for the shell or for no reason at all. I started out with at least a dozen or more of blue legged hermits 2 years ago and now there are only 2 left and they have grown in size and moved to bigger snail shells and now don't seem to mess with each other or anything in the tank so I leave them be. For the most part they are murderous psychos

[fishfreak0114]

I doubt it's the temperature, I have like 7 blue legs and they all do fine with my tank temperature, currently an average of 82 on hot days

[amphipod]

This is weird. Could it be a pathogen? Maybe the 3 crabs were very I'll just not visibly sick and the acclimation stress pushed their sick bodies to the limit?

Could there be a toxin in the tank and the one crab is just lucky and immune to the poison? Many sources of toxins exist, have you had the house fumigated lately?

[Gooburz]

If there was a toxin in the house I think the whole tank would be F'd.....

[amphipod]

If there was a toxin in the house I think the whole tank would be F'd.....

well, there only is hermit crabs added as livestock.

We need more information to make an appropriate judgment.