hermits and snails

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

Oh, look, another stupid question: but how do you make sure hermits don't harm your snails? Assuming they need to be provided with shells but what if they decide the empty shells provided aren't as appealing as the shells on your living snails!? Is it just better to not try and have them in the same tank???

About to order more CUC for my 5.5g and know i want more snails but not sure on a hermit as well. (They're cute though lol)

[Groot]

From experience as long as you have small reef safe hermit crabs like blue legs you should be good,  their are more opportunities. They will only inhabit a banded shells. I never have ever seen a hermit grab kill a snail for its shell and I had all types of reef safe hermit crabs. As long as the snail is healthy you shouldn't have a problem.

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

Generally no as long as there's some leftover food or even just casual diatom naturally growing. I sense that you do feed your tank regularly, so your CUC should be fine. I can't imagine how big a stomach hermit crabs have haha.

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

10 hours ago, DISQUALIFIED-QQ said:

Generally no as long as there's some leftover food or even just casual diatom naturally growing. I sense that you do feed your tank regularly, so your CUC should be fine. I can't imagine how big a stomach hermit crabs have haha.

aha i literally never feed lol - only softies and 2 nassarrius snails in there right now so no point, they find what they need from the population of pods and other small things 

 

 

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

lol sure enough I'm certain your pods are eating coral poop and in turn your CUC is eating poops and pods.

[Jakesaw]

No experience with snails in tank, but I figure there's always a risk that if a Crab needs a bigger shell bad enough he will be opportunistic to find a new home. 

 

Snails make their own shells

Crabs steal shells as needed / available

 

Law of the sea

[Kindanewtothis]

1 hour ago, Jakesaw said:

No experience with snails in tank, but I figure there's always a risk that if a Crab needs a bigger shell bad enough he will be opportunistic to find a new home. 

 

Snails make their own shells

Crabs steal shells as needed / available

 

Law of the sea

I'm affraid of what will happen in my tank with the pistol shrimp taking all the shells. Not much are left for the hermits.

[dling]

I stopped keeping  hermit crabs . Snails only because of the problems.

[Jakesaw]

1 hour ago, dling said:

I stopped keeping  hermit crabs . Snails only because of the problems.

What problems have you had with Hermits?

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

5 hours ago, dling said:

I stopped keeping  hermit crabs . Snails only because of the problems.

can you be more specific what problems?

[Ratvan]

17 hours ago, Jakesaw said:

What problems have you had with Hermits?

If anything like mine they are baby bulldozers and also no matter how many spare shells i add, they always want the shell a snail is wearing.

 

Hermits are entertaining, snails are more useful in my opinion 

[Jakesaw]

3 hours ago, Ratvan said:

If anything like mine they are baby bulldozers and also no matter how many spare shells i add, they always want the shell a snail is wearing.

 

Hermits are entertaining, snails are more useful in my opinion 

I would probably have to concede both points.

 

My crabs shock me when I find some of the corals or small rocks they have flipped in the sand bed.  Only fix was to get a sand bed plug holder which works.  

Snails are still new to me, but a week into it haven't caused me any problems yet.  Not sure if they'll knock over corals when they spend more time on my rock or not.  I've got an unglued candy cane plug wedged into rock that I'm waiting for someone to knock off.  So far so good though.

 

Crabs have utility, it's just not much in the way of algae control.  They'll eat a fish that dies or a sail that dies pretty quickly.  I presume this should keep the rotting flesh from mucking up water parameters in smaller tank..  

 

[Jakesaw]

6 hours ago, Ratvan said:

If anything like mine they are baby bulldozers 

Lights go on in the tank, and My favia is turned over Polyp side down. 

 

Now that's a well timed post!

[DevilDuck]

56 minutes ago, Jakesaw said:

Lights go on in the tank, and My favia is turned over Polyp side down. 

 

Now that's a well timed post!

Commit and glues those frags down! 🙂

[Jakesaw]

 

I make no commitments in the 10 gallon.  It's an experimentation tank and my sand bed is full. No place to glue it to as a low light coral that's growing very slow

 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

as the most indecisive person on the planet, I hate hate hate gluing down frags😂 so far, however, the hermits have left both the frags AND the snails alone, they are being well behaved little sidewaysbois and only eating the algae 🤞

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

ugh, spoke too soon. Hermits went on a murder spree saturday night and killed both turbo snails ☹️

[Jakesaw]

5 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

ugh, spoke too soon. Hermits went on a murder spree saturday night and killed both turbo snails ☹️

I've got 6 snails and 3 Red Scarlett Hermits, 3 Astrea Turbos, 2 Trochus, and spiny star Turbo. 

 

So far ( only 2 weeks with snails now ) I've seen no aggression between the two.  If you're having that problem, may want to make sure your hermits have enough left over food from feeding to stay well fed.

 

Or maybe your snails are dying in your tank and CUC is doing it's job. 

[Kindanewtothis]

I've seen more agression between hermits among themselves than snails vs hermits.

 

Blue legs are dicks.

 

Edit: 2 blue legs fighting as I posted this.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Kindanewtothis

[Dave21]

I have blue leg, scarlet, and Hawaiian hermit crabs in a tank with an assortment of snails. 

 

Generally I've had no issues and haven't loss any of them except for one turbo snail. 

 

The crabs generally fumble around and are fun to watch; however, I had one ornery Hawaiian hermit that would get into things. He would climb the corners of the aquariam and one day I even found him hanging on the end of a feather duster tube picking at the tip of the tube. I did catch him with a flipped over turbo snail and moved them apart but the following day the turbo snail was gone and the Hawaiian crab was in his shell. 

 

He used to change shells every other day and eventually disappeared. I dont know if one of the other crabs or a fish got him while he was changing shells. Outside of that crab I've had no issue. 

 

[Murphs_Reef]

I've never had any hermit go after snails.. I have zebra, larger blue leg, Halloween...

 

My wrasses on the other hand.. I put a combo of Ceriths and a few Astrea in every Thursday night to keep my snails stocked up to around 60-65 but it's a content uphill battle. 

 

[dling]

On 1/16/2022 at 10:58 AM, Jakesaw said:

What problems have you had with Hermits?

Killing the snails.

[dling]

On 1/16/2022 at 2:40 PM, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

can you be more specific what problems?

Snail killers.  There I said it. It feels good too get that off my chest.

[Jakesaw]

30 minutes ago, dling said:

Snail killers.  There I said it. It feels good too get that off my chest.

 

2 weeks new to snail and I feel like I've found the holy grail.  My rocks have been he77 for the last 2 months since raising nutrients.  Crabs eat some algae but in the grand scheme really do nothing to control it in the tank. 

 

Can't imagine going back to having a tank with no snails.

[fenderchamp]

16 minutes ago, Jakesaw said:

 

2 weeks new to snail and I feel like I've found the holy grail.  My rocks have been he77 for the last 2 months since raising nutrients.  Crabs eat some algae but in the grand scheme really do nothing to control it in the tank. 

 

Can't imagine going back to having a tank with no snails.

How do you know that the hermits killed the snails?