Hermit Crab larva. Second time in about a week.

[Rob in Puyallup]

I have several hermit crabs in a nano tank. Some Blue Legs and Red Legs, the real small guys.

 

Over the past week or so there have been two releases (births) of larvae from the crabs. Yesterday was the latest release, with at least 30 larva. The last group of babies lasted no more than several hours, the other inhabitants of the tank ate them all, it seems. Several days back I moved the hermits to their own tank, thinking that maybe I could raise the crablets, I'm very doubtful though.

 

Question is... How common is it for hermit crabs to breed in reef tanks and has anyone been successful in raising the young?

 

Rob

[BulkRate]

It's not uncommon for them to spawn in home aquariums (mine mate periodically but I haven't seen a hatching), but rearing the larvae's a bit of a challenge. Even if everything works out and nothing eats 'em, you'd still need a tank with completely different flow and filtration compared to what you're likely running to have a reef tank, the right mix of phyto/phyco plankton for them to eat, appropriate substrate for them to settle onto and hide in and eventually incredibly small shells for their initial homes. Think "the little ones you find mixed into a bag of live sand" small... size of a couple print periods.

 

I was going to say "nobody's doing this"... then the Internet proved me wrong or at least provided doubt. I ought to have said "nobody's doing this commercially" to provide captive-raised hermits. Now, if it's for the challenge or simply "just because"... that's a different story altogether!