# of hermit crabs?

[AStarWithin]

What is the recommended max number of blue legged hermit crabs for a 10 gallon tank?

[TurtleWax]

0

[adinsxq]

0

[brad_gholson]

put 5 blue leg and scarlet hermits. they play good together

[caja]

Hehe tw and adin.

 

<------------Not a hermie hater. Go for the max, they'll duke it out and you'll lose a few but no biggie. I find them to industrious little buggers. I dropped 10 blue legs and 4 red legs in my 7 minibow when I was having algae issues. Algae cleared up, red legs disappeared and the blue legs reign supreme.

[NaNO ReeFiN]

0

 

stick with snails.

 

1 or 2 if you want them for entertainment.

[caja]

I feel outnumbered.

[el pez]

one or none

 

they will kill your snails for shells as they grow.

 

if you must have a hermit get one or two scarlett reef hermits or baha red legs. in my experience i have never had either one kill any snails for shells.

[adinsxq]

ha!

[tinyreef]

1 per gallon is what i use. i find the blues will leave snails alone if they have enough to eat. ceriths are fair game to them regardless tho, so think twice about hermits if ceriths are one of the main types of snails you're keeping. try to get smaller blues, the smaller the better imo.

 

i got your back caja.

[el pez]

IME, hermits will RARELY touch a snail for food. they are not predatory, but scavengers. from all my hermit keeping they kill the snails for shells. sometimes leaving the carcass

[caja]

I've had hardly any problems with my hermits killing snails for shells, maybe one or two snails in 10 months. I've always kept 10-15 various size empty shells in the tank for the hermits to move into as they grow. I also supplement their diet with sinking pellets on occasion. Maybe I'm just lucky, dunnno, I still say they're a beneficial part of a reef system.

 

TY tiny!

[Fant]

0

 

 

only thing worse than putting hermits in your tank would be to add damsels.

[Acoustic]

Hey take a gander at my 10 gallon cleanup crew:

 

15 mexican dwarf hermies (Landscape Duty)

5 nessarius snails (Glass Patrol)

5 cerith snails (DSB Smoothy Patrol)

1 fighting conch (Sunbather that does NOTHING)

1 tuxedo urchin (Coraline destroyer and refuses to touch any hair algae)

 

 

.......and I still have algae problems. Go figure.

[AMcNeice]

In my 20:

 

4 Astrea,

3 Turbo

5 Cerith

5 Nessurius

3 goofy Hermits.

 

The hermts don't never bother the snails, but like caja, I've got about 20 empty shells that are bigger than the hermits sitting on my sandbed.

 

Unless one of them decides to downsize my snails should be okay.

[Jordan]

I would go with one blue leg hermit per gallon.

[myelin]

I'd go with 1 scarlet leg hermit per gallon. The blue legs are okay, but the scarlet leg hermits eat the hair algae. The blue legs eat the hair algae in my tank, but usually they are molesting eachother instead.