Snail identification needed please!

[anniebanana267]

Hi, I purchased this snail and this crab at my lfs and I didn’t catch the name of them, and I can’t find them anywhere online. Anyone got any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[WV Reefer]

5 minutes ago, anniebanana267 said:

Hi, I purchased this snail and this crab at my lfs and I didn’t catch the name of them, and I can’t find them anywhere online. Anyone got any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

Ninja star astrea

[anniebanana267]

1 minute ago, WV Reefer said:

Ninja star astrea

Thank you so much!!

[WV Reefer]

3 minutes ago, anniebanana267 said:

Thank you so much!!

You are welcome. Need a better pic of the crab to know for sure. 

[1891Bro]

27 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

You are welcome. Need a better pic of the crab to know for sure. 

You’re too kind. I’m staying out of this. 

[anniebanana267]

31 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

You are welcome. Need a better pic of the crab to know for sure. 

I’ll try to take one tomorrow when he comes out

 

4 minutes ago, 1891Bro said:

You’re too kind. I’m staying out of this. 

Sorry? I don’t understand

[mndfreeze]

You probably should research what you're buying before you put it in your tank.  You can't just impulse buy things if you dont know what they are or what its requirements, food choices, etc are.   There are hermits that are reef safe, there are hermits that grow to masssssiiivveeee sizes and eat anything and everything they can get their grubby claws on, including coral, fish, other inverts, snails, etc.

 

p.s. that looks to me from what little I can see in the pic, of one of the not-safe hermits that gets huge.  Generally hairy hermits are bad news bears, especially if they are on the larger side.

[1891Bro]

19 minutes ago, anniebanana267 said:

I’ll try to take one tomorrow when he comes out

 

Sorry? I don’t understand

Inside joke?

 

3 minutes ago, mndfreeze said:

You probably should research what you're buying before you put it in your tank.  You can't just impulse buy things if you dont know what they are or what its requirements, food choices, etc are.   There are hermits that are reef safe, there are hermits that grow to masssssiiivveeee sizes and eat anything and everything they can get their grubby claws on, including coral, fish, other inverts, snails, etc.

 

p.s. that looks to me from what little I can see in the pic, of one of the not-safe hermits that gets huge.  Generally hairy hermits are bad news bears, especially if they are on the larger side.

Reef safe hermit = wiener safe herpes. 

[mndfreeze]

I've never had bad experiences with any of the smaller species, other then normal stealing of food which waaaaay more then just hermits do.

[anniebanana267]

8 minutes ago, mndfreeze said:

You probably should research what you're buying before you put it in your tank.  You can't just impulse buy things if you dont know what they are or what its requirements, food choices, etc are.   There are hermits that are reef safe, there are hermits that grow to masssssiiivveeee sizes and eat anything and everything they can get their grubby claws on, including coral, fish, other inverts, snails, etc.

 

p.s. that looks to me from what little I can see in the pic, of one of the not-safe hermits that gets huge.  Generally hairy hermits are bad news bears, especially if they are on the larger side.

I agree with you, I should’ve done more research. I was told I should buy a hermit crab and I researched hermit crabs but I didn’t know there were different species. I’m new to the hobby in case it wasn’t obvious enough. I’ll take another picture tomorrow and post it here.

6 minutes ago, 1891Bro said:

Inside joke?

 

Reef safe hermit = wiener safe herpes. 

Sorry about that I didn’t understand. I thought you were speaking to me. ?

5 minutes ago, mndfreeze said:

I've never had bad experiences with any of the smaller species, other then normal stealing of food which waaaaay more then just hermits do.

Yes, that’s what I was told, that they ate the leftover food that the fish left and the algae.  

[mndfreeze]

Generally the common ones people buy for their clean up crew are blue legged hermits or small red legged hermits.  Avoid hairy hermits, land-hermits (obviously), anenome hermits and other hermits with special needs.   Your local reef store should know when you tell them you need a reef safe clean up crew what to direct you to.  IMO, if that hermit is as hairy as I think it is, I would take it back unless you plan for this to be a larger fish only kind of system.

 

Ninja star astreas are awesome though.  One of my favorites for their cool shells.

[Nocturnal]

17 hours ago, mndfreeze said:

Generally the common ones people buy for their clean up crew are blue legged hermits or small red legged hermits.  Avoid hairy hermits, land-hermits (obviously), anenome hermits and other hermits with special needs.   Your local reef store should know when you tell them you need a reef safe clean up crew what to direct you to.  IMO, if that hermit is as hairy as I think it is, I would take it back unless you plan for this to be a larger fish only kind of system.

 

Ninja star astreas are awesome though.  One of my favorites for their cool shells.

Why avoid them????

 

 

[anniebanana267]

Got some pics today. He’s really not hairy, it was just a too-good picture ? any new ideas?

[mndfreeze]

How much did he cost you?  Is he super small?  normally the normal clean up crew type hermits are like a buck each or less.   I would look through some hermit identification sites to see if you can find a good match, or at the very least look around on various sites at clean up crew options and look at the different hermits they have available.  Common varieties are small red legged hermits, blue legged hermits, zebra hermits, and then there are more expensive similar species like the electric blue hermit and scarlet reef hermit.

 

I still see lots of little hairs on him.  Mostly its the ones on his claws that concern me, and his color seems a bit off for the common species, but I am colorblind and it could be your tank lightning / camera.

 

Here is a reference I googled with a bunch of types so you can look for pictures to match him.

 

https://www.thespruce.com/reef-safe-hermit-crabs-2924542

[mndfreeze]

https://www.thespruce.com/saltwater-hermit-crab-photo-gallery-4109186

 

There is a picture of the hairy yellow hermit on that link

[Tamberav]

Maybe a mexican red leg hermit crab? I see he has spots on his claws and red antenna. I have these in my tank and they are hard workers and stay small.

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, mndfreeze said:

How much did he cost you?  Is he super small?  normally the normal clean up crew type hermits are like a buck each or less.   I would look through some hermit identification sites to see if you can find a good match, or at the very least look around on various sites at clean up crew options and look at the different hermits they have available.  Common varieties are small red legged hermits, blue legged hermits, zebra hermits, and then there are more expensive similar species like the electric blue hermit and scarlet reef hermit.

 

I still see lots of little hairs on him.  

 

I don't think hair means much... electric blues have hair too if you look close enough. 

 

 

[mndfreeze]

Yeah, the hairs themselves don't. I only mentioned it because of its coloration and the way the hairs looked on the very first pic.  Later pics make me think its probably a red legged reef hermit.  There are so many species of hermits that make it into the trade and not all of them are as consistant with their markings as one would think.  All my red legged hermits were solid dark red with smooth legs and smooth claws, no spotting.   

 

I'm sure OP is fine, but she probably should at least call the LFS and ask them to be safe.  Some stores don't even carry anything other then one or two of the most common species anyway and that might make it a lot easier.

 

All the ones around me pretty much always only have the red legged and blue legged tricolors.  Any others are usually oddballs that somehow snuck into their order, or were special ordered like halloween hermits or electric blue knuckles.

 

 

[ajmckay]

Hi there - so I'm sort of beginning to think this is a troll?  Asking questions is great but you're not getting it... I don't know if the problem is that you're not thinking through your actions or if you just have no plan for this tank but I can tell people are starting to get annoyed.

 

A 5 second google search turned up a green stripe / thin stripe hermit, or Clibanarius vittatus.

 

I've personally never had one but they're common in the gulf.   From what I've read they get about 2x larger than the typical red leg/blue leg hermits.  So it's probably fine, but given it is a crab it could cause some issues down the road with snails and such.  Hermits are notorious for killing snails to "try on" their shells. 

 

Upon further investigation, some sources hesitate to consider them reef safe... http://www.wetwebmedia.com/hermitidfaqs.htm

 

 

Edit: found it... Clibanarius antillensis.  Pretty close to c. vittatus though, probably similar characteristics.

[anniebanana267]

On 4/12/2018 at 12:23 AM, Tamberav said:

Maybe a mexican red leg hermit crab? I see he has spots on his claws and red antenna. I have these in my tank and they are hard workers and stay small.

 

 

 

 

It’s a great thought but he’s not so red. He just has reddish/orange antennae.  but thank you!

On 4/12/2018 at 12:47 AM, ajmckay said:

Hi there - so I'm sort of beginning to think this is a troll?  Asking questions is great but you're not getting it... I don't know if the problem is that you're not thinking through your actions or if you just have no plan for this tank but I can tell people are starting to get annoyed.

 

A 5 second google search turned up a green stripe / thin stripe hermit, or Clibanarius vittatus.

 

I've personally never had one but they're common in the gulf.   From what I've read they get about 2x larger than the typical red leg/blue leg hermits.  So it's probably fine, but given it is a crab it could cause some issues down the road with snails and such.  Hermits are notorious for killing snails to "try on" their shells. 

 

Upon further investigation, some sources hesitate to consider them reef safe... http://www.wetwebmedia.com/hermitidfaqs.htm

 

 

Edit: found it... Clibanarius antillensis.  Pretty close to c. vittatus though, probably similar characteristics.

I don’t understand what you mean by troll. I’d never just joke around about this stuff, I’m really serious and dedicated to it. And honestly I don’t care about the people who get bothered, I’m here for help and assistance and I appreciate the people who take the time out of their day to help me. 

On the other hand, I do think you’re right. He really looks like the green stripe hermit crab. Thank you so much. I really couldn’t find him, I swear. It would make sense that he’d get much bigger than the blue legged crabs because he’s much larger already, even though he’s still pretty small. 

 

Again, thank you so much for all your help, everyone!