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Innovative Marine Aquariums

STUPID Hermits!


Scott Riemer

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I love hermit wars. I've had two battle for days with no one winning in the end. I've seen them rip another out of their shell and take it. Usually, every morning they are all huddled together, being friendly. When the lights come on, it's go time!

 

So much fun for a dollar.

 

Robb

 

 

HA! Imagine the epic battle you could have experienced for only two dollars!

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Does anyone have any recommendations on where to get empty shells for hermits? lfs?

 

I just got a bunch from blue zoo aquatics - they have variety packs, they were super clean and in excellent shape, not to mention cheap!

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hermits eat detritus and s*** out candy or what? yes im a noob and i dont understand why eating detritus is good... because doesnt it just come out the other end? oh yeah and... its been about five minutes so.. bump

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I love hermits, there is nothing in my tank eating more algae than the hermits. Funny thing is that on the day I introduced my CUC I had 1 trochus and 2 astraea that were not long for this world. I have 6 scarlet hermits. While the astraeas were struggling to survive and not really moving a hermit turned one over and poked it. It squirmed and the hermit then left and the snail righted itself.

 

It was like the hermit smelled death in the water, but upon seeing movement just said 'OK, not yet'. It moved on. Time will tell how the scarlet hermits work out, but right now they are my best algae munchers and don't bother anything else as long as it is living. Dead things are fair game though.

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My Mexican Dwarfs don't kill snails quite like my other hermits did. I had a scarlet legged that I watched kill 2 astrea snails in a row before he was jailed and taken to the LFS to be fed as puffer food.

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I read an article recently that claimed hermits are not found in reef environments in the wild, more in the flats and intertidal zones. The artilcle claimed that hermits are not herbevores but omnivors and eat much more that just algeas. It sujested avoiding hermits and using a combination of nassarius. trochus and cerith snails as CUC.

 

It made sense.

 

 

I have found hermits exactly where you just said. I go to a few marsh areas by the beach its areas there are no bathers as lots plants growing out of rocky shore and bather "unfriendly" and have seen tons of hermits when I scuba or walk few feet out.

I call it a marsh,mangrove swamp as it resembles that to me anyway .

I have scuba in real reefs and not once saw a hermit certainly doesnt mean there arent zillions there as no expert but that article sounds correct .

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  • 1 month later...

I'm down to two hermits ATM Bubs and Babs they are the only two inhabitants that have been with me for the entire time I've been keeping SW. Both are Mexi red tipped and HUGE! the bigger of the two can probably span a good inch and a half. They have wethered evey mishap I've thrown at them including my crash. Tough little buggers. :)

-pinner

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I have two blue and one red and no problems.

some one said they had 20 in a 2.5 that seems like a lot to me perhaps thats why theres all the rawkus.

 

anyhow I think I read as well that they arent really present in the natural reef environment, so I wonder why they are such a standard in reefkeeping...

 

its a hermit conspiracy... they somehow wrote themselves into the hobby so they could get free food and watch tv through the glass.

 

those bastids.

 

 

Loosey

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  • 6 months later...

My several hermits have been banished to the fuge where they are forced to glean parts of my culepra and chaeto! I have only 1 hermit that has proven himself to not mess with fish/corals/snails and he can stay in the display!

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  • 5 months later...

I have two blue leg Hermits, and one night I was watching them go at it. I pulled them apart once, and they went back at it again, so I just gave up. Well when I checked on them before going to work, they where in the same place, with one of them rolling around with an empty shell. I thought he had killed, and eaten the other one, but I then say him sitting on a rock above the other with no shell. He was looking down at the other one playing with his shell. He looked sad, and out of place all naked. When I got home from work that day, he was back in his shell sitting on a rock looking very neglected, and not himself.

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I place a red legged hermit in my NC12, and it killed 1 of my 2 Nassarius snails in the first night. It looks like it its going to take the shell. Either way that thing is going back.

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