Hermits eating snails?

[Powah]

Is this a lack of food thing? I have some algae in the tank I feed pellets in the AM and Frozen food in the evening. I keep trying different snails to help with the glass algae most recently I tried small turbo snails but I noticed even though the hermit crabs have much bigger shells and many empty shells aligned with the front of the tank they can choose from. They just go right up to the snail all types when they finally go to the sand bed flip them over and start eating them. Not sure what to do the snails I get are always smaller than the hermits I thought they wouldn't want smaller shells.

 

 

[Ratvan]

Do you know what type of hermits they are? 

[Powah]

The ones I have caught eating snails in the act are Banded Eye and Halloween I also have scarlet and red and blue and a left hand (1 of each)

[LazyFish]

Sometimes they do it for food but I've seen mine do it to get the shell. Blue legs and scarlet red legs both in my tanks have been caught at it. The orange tip and Mexican red legs I havent caught at it...I have some snails they dont seem to care for they seem more likely to attack margaritas and cerith in my tanks. Tonga narcissus, dwarf cerith, stomatella varia and money cowrie they mostly seem to leave alone.

[Clown79]

Sometimes they do it because the snail is dying or dead- cleaning up which is their purpose.

 

Some do it for shells but a lot of hermits prefer certain types of shells.

 

Sometimes its lack of food.

 

I never had my scarlets or blue legged go after anything. I had snails lying on their shell for days without being bothered. 

[Powah]

Yeah interesting with all the watching I did today I noticed an electric blue I have seen in a long time in a nasarrius shell I don't think I'm going to waste money on snails anymore I'll just hand clean the glass daily. 

 

It really surprises me though that they at killing the snails and not wanting the shells. 

[Clown79]

17 hours ago, Powah said:

Yeah interesting with all the watching I did today I noticed an electric blue I have seen in a long time in a nasarrius shell I don't think I'm going to waste money on snails anymore I'll just hand clean the glass daily. 

 

It really surprises me though that they at killing the snails and not wanting the shells. 

Is there enough left over food for them, algae, detritus?

 

If not they will go after snails to survive.

 

Or your snails are dying from lack of food and the hermits are doing their job.

[Jakesaw]

Snails grow their own shells naturally.

 

Crabs do not grow their own shells.  They have to steal it from a shell producer ( snail )

 

I have never owned a snail so I don't know how they interact in an aquarium.

 

[Murphs_Reef]

I tend to find as @Clown79 suggested that if crabs are hungry and/or there are any dying snails around then it is likely that the snails will be pray. I'd the crabs have plenty of detritus to go and and the snails are in good health it's unlikely that hermits will attempt to eat them.