Hermit crabs

[Fishiebusiness]

I've been hearing some negative comments about hermit crabs and their eating corals or attacking snails/fish. How bad are they really? If they arent that bad, I would like to keep at least one in my new 10, how many do you all reccommend?

[wulffenstein]

hermits are essential.  I don't know where you are getting your info but I have never heard of them attacking corals or fish (unless you buy the monster size ones)  Crabs can do damage but not hermits.

 

The rule of thumb is one per gallon.  It depends on your bio load and the rest of the clean up crew though.

[Toyfreek]

I agree with wulf that hermits can be a good addition to a reef system. some kinds are known to kill snails for thier shells when they outgrow the one they have, predominately blue legged ones.

HTH,

Toy

[printerdown01]

yeah, your sources are somewhat correct... hermits will eat anything they can fit into their mouths... the amount of damage they do on the algae population in an aquarium is debated heatedly, with good arguments on both sides... Hermits in search of shells can attack snails in your tank... However, I have hermits and have only lost three snails (all of them were nass, and come to think of it I only had 3 nass, lol). However, some people have kept nass and hermits together just fine. General rule: The bigger the hermit the more problematic... I personally like them, more for intertainment value than anything else... I have them and I like them... I haven't heard any reports of the tiny hermits most people use attacking corals.... I say 1 per 2 gallons, but that is probably just because I'm cheap . I would recommend them to others.... But if you are afraid to use them, you could use nass snails and bristle worms instead (they will perform the same functions).

[Fishiebusiness]

I think i'll put 4 hermit crabs in. I'll throw in some empty shells too just in case they get picky.

[My Alife 7]

I myself have 5 hermits in a 7 gallon and they're all little tiny ones. I've never seen any of my hermits attack or eat anything that they weren't suppose to.

[Joxer the Mighty]

Hermit crabs can be bad news if you're using a DSB, check out Dr. Ron's forum over at Reefcentral.com

 

As much as I enjoyed my hermits, I finally had to get rid of them because they kept killing my snails. The clencher was getting up one morning to find a Blue Leg munching away on my mushrooms. Maybe they just didn't have enough food to scavenge. Regardless, back to the LFS they went.

[flaunt]

i've seen a blue leg kill a scarlet for his shell, even though the scarlet's shell wasn't any bigger!

[Joxer the Mighty]

A couple of my snails actually had smaller shells than the hermits. The hermits were either hungry or killing out of instinct. I've always wondered why folks like Tampa Bay Saltwater include so many hermits in their critter packages (2 per gallon). Seems that having so many crabs would quickly wipe out all your sand dwelling creatures. I know that once I got rid of the hermits, my pod and feather duster population really grew.

[lizbeth]

I have three blue legged in my 5.5 and so far I like them. They were very small when I got them seven weeks ago, they have grown quite a bit in that time. They don't seem to bother anything, I have noticed they will sometimes crawl across a coral but they don't seem to mind too much.

[flaunt]

Is there any definitive evidence anywhere about what blue legs actually eat?  I see mine crawling across just about every rock in the tank, all over the sand bed, ALWAYS picking at things and apparently sticking things in their mouths, but just what the hell do they actually consume?  Most aquarists would say they are algae eaters, but I think that's more an idealistic response than realistic.  Btw, I only have 2 of them because I can't very well justify their existence in my tank.  I ought to remove them just to see what happens.

 

 

(Edited by flaunt at 12:25 pm on May 24, 2002)

[Joxer the Mighty]

Dr. Ron Shimek over at his Reef Central  forum:

 

"Basically hermits truly eat anything they can stuff in their mouths, so they move through the environment plucking small bits of animals and plants up and eating them.

 

They will eat small polyps, small snails, larger snails, dead fish, dead whales, algal fragments,... well, you get the picture. "