Marine Hermit Crabs....lots of questions

[flutinkat]

Flutinkat, I'm just wondering, did you come over from the hermit crab association? I was on there years ago, back when I had land hermits. I remember reading about how some people kept marine hermits even though it wasn't very common on the forums. Now I haven't had land hermits in a couple years and I only have a few blue leg marine ones in my reef tank. I was just thinking about how there's a completely different mentality between reef forums and the land hermit people for what we do with the crabs. We keep land crabs as the pet and main focus of out terrariums, but then on other times we toss marine hermits into our reefs just to keep the place clean and be part of the scavengers. It's interesting having been on both sides.

 

I used to sprout some millet from birdseed every now and then to let my crabs munch on. I tried adding a couple live plants to my tank once but they got chewed up by my crabs. One time I added a couple brown feeder crickets to the tank and the crickets happily bred like crazy in my coco husk substrate. My crabs went nuts and ate all the adult crickets and later on I had a ton of tiny crickets all over.

I kind of miss my land hermits, I wish I still had some around.

 

PM me if you ever need fresh, organic dandelion seeds or dried leaves. They grow all over in our fields and we never spray them with anything, so I'm sure your crabs would love them.

I did come over from HCA! It was a real culture shock coming here, since you're right, there is such a different mentality about the importance of hermits. A few people keep marine hermits still but I'm not sure if more than just a couple other people have MHC tanks.

 

I do live plants all the time, and I'm kindof okay with the plant trashing. With mostly exotics (21 crabs, only 6 are PPs) everything that can be tank trashed is trashed sooner or later, even in the 75g. I'll have to try the cricket thing! I've thought about mealworms but have heard that other's crabs have shown no interest.

 

Anyway, thanks for the offer! I am good for now since I currently have some dandelions growing, but I'm sure I will need some later.

 

UPDATE ON THE TANK:

Added marine hermits today after testing for several days and having things turn up normal. I've got about 30 shells in there and flame algae, and the dwarf hermits will be in soon. I'll post pics tomorrow, hopefully! Thanks again for all the help.

[flutinkat]

Got a story going on photobucket! Here's the current tank. http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/flutinkat/story/76359 You can see one of the hermits sitting on top of the far right rock.

[flutinkat]

:/ So one of the marine hermits left its shell last night and died. Since the abdomen was clear, I was hoping it was a molt, but only one shell was still occupied. Everything is within acceptable levels as of this morning except for nitrites which are a little high (1 ppm), but forum reading said that nitrites aren't going to cause that. I've read through every article, followed all advice as far as I know (there even isn't a bubbler anymore!), so I'm not sure what went wrong. I'm assuming it's something I did, rather than a purchase stress problem.

[seabass]

Nitrite itself isn't that toxic in a saltwater system, but it does indicate the the nitrogen cycle is not been fully established and stabilized. Can you detect any ammonia?

 

It's possible that it is a molt. After they molt the can be inclined to lay low until there exoskeleton hardens up a bit. You can't always see them by picking up a shell, and looking in. I'd still keep an eye on the shells for your crab.

 

How much flow do you have? I'd be shooting for 10 to 25 times turnover.

[flutinkat]

The flow is plenty strong, it's 90 gph for a 2-10g filter.

 

So far, the other crab is fine, and apparently I got a hitchhiker starfish with my macro algae. Going to wait until it gets a bit bigger and adopt it out on craigslist, I guess.

 

I have .25 ammonia, but I assumed that was from leftover food (and the carcass, which I left for the other one to consume). Would this be an incorrect assumption? The other one isn't terribly active, but is reasonably healthy from what I can tell. The rest of the readings:

pH: 8.2

Ammonia: .25

Nitrites: .25

Nitrates: 20

 

Any ideas?

[fretfreak13]

Your saltwater nitrogen cycle is still going, so refrain from adding any marine hermit crabs until it finishes. It can take a few weeks, but since its been seeded now its on its way. You'll need to wait until your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate all test out zero. Sometimes you may end up with about 10ppm of nitrate at the end of a cycle and that is acceptable.

 

Another thing too, are you using an API kit? They aren't the most accurate things out there and alot of members have their kits constantly reading .25ppm ammonia. If you want, make a teensy bit of fresh saltwater and test it. there will be NO ammonia in that, and if it still reads .25ppm you know its the test kit. However, since you do have .25 nitrite, your ammonia test could be accurate but its just something to keep in your back pocket.

 

How did you acclimate your marine hermits?

 

Your hitch hiker star is probably a mini brittle star or an asterina starfish. Both stay small and are fine to leave in your tank permanently.

[flutinkat]

I just used the same acclimation as my freshwater tanks; leave them in the bag in the water for 10 minutes, then pull them out and put them in the tank. Is there a different method I should be using?

I am using API; I'll try testing the ammonia. I assumed the cycle was done because it was testing 0 on ammonia and nitrites when I got the hermits. Anyway, I'll hold off on adding more until it is 0 again, and I may need to get a second opinion test kit for that. Is it possible it restarted?? I haven't done anything, I think, that would kill the beneficial bacteria.

 

Thanks for the info on the starfish. It looks like an asterina to me.. It will be fun to keep it; I thought I couldn't keep starfish in my little tank.

[BlennyBoi]

i have 5 dwarf yellow tip hermits in my 30 gal reef tank. they are really cool and eat algae. mine are still really small and its hard to get suitably sized shells. they arent very pretty, i wanted scarlet hermits, but theyre a carribean species i think, and i wanted my tank to be a great barrier reef biotope (i live in australia so thats pretty easy, my lfs only stocks gbr fish, inverts and corals). they get along fine with my clown, sixline and bicolour blenny. i might have lost some to a hitchhikeing mantis tho. be careful of those.

[KingLucy]

On 4/14/2013 at 4:08 PM, polarblair2000 said:

Hi there, this sounds like a pretty awesome project.

 

Obviously Land hermit crabs are pretty complex animals. I don't speak for everyone but in reality hermit crabs are not really thought of much more than a part of a reef tanks clean up crew. A collection of smaller creatures we first add to our tanks to help keep it clean. This includes snails, crabs, hermits and other things.

 

Hermits seem to look after them selves in a regular reef tank other than providing larger shells there's not much you need to do.

 

There may be some people with more info on these guys that your looking for but I would try the invert sub forum for more answers.

 

Marine fish food does not contain copper, otherwise all our corals would be dead so I wouldn't worry about that.

 

Really hermit crabs can be a bit of a pest to the reef keeper. The steal food and trample over corals - they are interesting little guys but I've not seen anyone solely dedicate a tank for them before on here so there might not be as many experts as you might hope.

 

Be sure to post pics when it's set up! Would like to see this progress

 

EDIT: Seabass beat me to most of those questions

The one type of marine hermit crab that is 100% reef safe and lives in reefs in the wild is the scarlet hermit crab. It is very docile and won't knock over your corals like blue legs. I've heard of other red legged hermits eating corals, so would not be desirable in a reef tank. I personally love blue legs even if they do knock everything over they seem to be the most active marine species and its fun to watch their goofy behaviors. Unless you're really set on creating the most amazing reef tank in the world, blue legs are fine in a reef tank, but make sure that you don't have anything loose because I have had times where a blue legs has knocked over a pile of live rocks with some coral on top and crushed some other more crustacean. Just make sure your aquascape is structurally sound before adding blue legs. Red legs seem to be slower and less active and I haven't has any of those issues with them.

[Jakesaw]

On 4/14/2013 at 11:35 PM, flutinkat said:

I'm thinking three scarlets or four dwarf zebras. I checked out the other kinds but I'm just not a fan.

 

Thanks again for everything!

I've got 3 Scarletts in my 10 gallon Reef tank - with one clown at the moment.  

 

They can be lazy or can move around quite a bit throughout the day.  

 

The RSH crabs spend alot of time on the rockwork, Sand and they even like to crawl up the silicone sealant on sides of my tank, heater to get some algae. 

 

I never direct feed them - as they graze on fish food stuck in rocks, and the algae on the rock / sand / aquarium.  Got my first one with Fish Only system and no reef light and was concerned about food for the crab, so I spot feed Crab Cuisine pellets and crab ate them happily.  Once I got a reef light and some algae There's plenty of food for an omnivore scavenger to eat all day long if he wants.

 

3 Red Scarletts in a 5 gallon seems a bit much to me. Maybe 2, but I don't have a ton of experience.  They are cheap enough to try if you want to.  Make sure there is alot of surface to crawl over / rocks / sand / whatever.  

* Hermit crabs aren't really social creatures in my experience.

* The crabs do tend to battle from time to time.  Interesting to watch. 

* They clean my corals and rockwork throughout the day but not thoroughly just to graze a meal.

* Sometimes when they meet, more duke it out over shell envy - or one run away from another to avoid a battle. Having a larger shells to move into is a good idea too.  

 

It's all pretty harmless. though in my brief experience.  I enjoy the hermits as part of life ecosystem.  

 

[Jakesaw]

 

 

On 5/5/2013 at 9:27 PM, flutinkat said:

:/ So one of the marine hermits left its shell last night and died. Since the abdomen was clear, I was hoping it was a molt, but only one shell was still occupied. Everything is within acceptable levels as of this morning except for nitrites which are a little high (1 ppm), but forum reading said that nitrites aren't going to cause that. I've read through every article, followed all advice as far as I know (there even isn't a bubbler anymore!), so I'm not sure what went wrong. I'm assuming it's something I did, rather than a purchase stress problem.

Don't be so quick to judge.  My red scarlett's first molt, I thought that happened.  Picked up shell, looked inside and it was empty.  I bought a replacement crab and almost threw out shell but left it in the aquarium. Apparently The crab had pulled back into shell though. 

 

A few days later, the shell was moving again as the hermit came back to life. 

[Critteraholic]

+1 @Jakesawon leaving the shell in there.  The hermies can pull so far in the shell you can't see them.  My blue legged hermit (Lola) always hides for a couple of days after her molt.  Marine hermits don't always stay with their molts like land hermies.  Lola is in a 2.5 gallon pico reef tank.

 

As for food, get freeze dried! You can feed freeze dried mysis shrimp to both your land and marine hermies.  I do soak mine in salt water for the corals before feeding my reef tank.  I just give Lola a big shrimp right at the start so she doesn't steal from the corals. 😄

 

If your ammonia gets high, water changes are the easiest way to lower them. Say a gallon out of your 5.5.  But! This will slow the cycle down, just so you know!

 

API test kits are okay as long as you have the right ones.  You HAVE to get the ones that say they can be used for saltwater. Right on the front of the box. And have separate cards for taking saltwater readings. Otherwise your readings will be all over the place. 😳

 

Can't wait to see the pics!

 

 

[rough eye]

i bought 1 hermit (blue leg) and ended up with 2 because one was hiding in one of the empty shells the LFS gave me. so he spent at least a half hour out of water, wasn't acclimated and just dumped in the tank and was fine. 

 

maybe because the 2 are so different in size i never see them fight. only once was one going after the other, and i'm not even sure that was fighting. mostly all they will do is climb over one another and overturn one another. the larger one climbed on top of mexican turbo as he was snoozing on the sand and flipped him over.