Pics and Video: Hermit Evicted by Nassarius Snails Retakes His Shell!

[james.tsai]

So I looked at my tank today and saw a few Nassarius snails come out for seemingly no reason. They usually only come out during feeding or if something died so I thought, uh oh something died! Well I look over and a snail and a hermit were going at it.

 

Out of nowhere, the hermit was out of his shell and on the back of the snail. I thought he was trying to kill the snail to steal his shell but the Nassarius was getting after the hermit, I think. Soon two other snails joined in the fray and the evicted hermit ran into the live rock. The snails slimed up the hermit pretty good (the hermit was trying to get the slime off of him while hiding in the rock) and they were digging around in his shell for a good minute. Then the snails just up and left, back to the sand.

 

The hermit hung out until the coast was clear and made his way down the rock and snuck back into his shell. Here it is without its shell!

 

 

and a close up:

 

 

 

Here is the video of the hermit sneaking past the snails he was fighting and slipping back into his shell (slips in around 1:10 so start a bit before that):

 

 

Anyone ever heard of this happening or seen it live? Pretty crazy! Anyone think the hermit is dying and that's why the snails were after him? The hermit looks fine now...

[oncorhynchus]

Wow. I've never seen snails evict a hermit. I once had a one hermit shell jack another. It was pretty funny, he yanked him out and took his shell. After that the naked hermit tried to get in the newly abandoned shell and the other hermit would not let him! The little B$#%T!$D shell jacked him and then taunted him!

[pyrocreep]

Nice video. I thought I was going to get a video like this once, but the hermit decided he was good with where he was apparently.

 

I really like that right hand rock that your letting your zoas grown onto. I'm not sure if you were still thinking about adding more, but that is really up to you, but IMO if they grew in like that you would have a good looking mixed rock with some pretty big groups..

[GOODgREEF]

Off topic: Is that black gravel?

[james.tsai]

Off topic: Is that black gravel?

 

It is indeed black gravel - Indo/Pacific CaribSea I believe. I got a 20lb bag of it, live Argonite... good stuff. A bit chunky but looks cool I think

 

Nice video. I thought I was going to get a video like this once, but the hermit decided he was good with where he was apparently.

 

I really like that right hand rock that your letting your zoas grown onto. I'm not sure if you were still thinking about adding more, but that is really up to you, but IMO if they grew in like that you would have a good looking mixed rock with some pretty big groups..

 

Bummer.. it was dumb luck seeing that in action, guess I should be happy I got lucky!

 

Thanks for the comments on the future zoa garden... didn't realize how long it would take to get them to grow out though, I might have to add more frags / colonies or I might be waiting years for it to fill out...