Frigin hermit crabs eating my zoas

[cherokee2871]

I have a pretty good clean up crew in my tank and I got a colony of about 20-30 blue zoanthid polyps today and not five mins after I put them in all of my hermits but 2 were standing on top of it ripping them apart has anyone ever heard of this or am I just seeing things. I removed all of them out of the tank and moved them to a tuperware container with some water until I heard anything from yall. But they are still going back to my LFS and Ill just stick to snails. But please any stories or experiences I would love to hear

[darkfishy2690]

I found that hermits are pretty useless, snails IMO are the best for eating algae and stuff. I got a nice frag of xenia once from a local reefer. My hermits ripped all the stalks off and then finished by eating the base.

[c est ma]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again...IME, hermits (and many other CUC organisms) zero in on any new addition and give it a careful going-over. What looks like an attack on your coral is more likely just a thorough clean-up around them...

 

But then there are experiences like darkfishy's...

 

I think 2 things are important:

 

1. What species of hermits do you have? I understand that only a few are considered comfortably reef-safe...

 

2. Do they have anything to eat? People sometimes stock their tanks according to the "so many crabs/gallon" mantra w/o paying attention to the cleaning needs of the tank. I think many a good crab goes bad when it's starving...

 

That said, I think it's a great idea to return any critter that is doing more harm than good. Certainly far better than killing it, which some people have said they've done...

 

--Diane