Are hermits really needed in your cleanup crew?

[Neogenocide]

Hey all,

I'll be moving my setup from a 46g bow to a 180g tank soon, and one of the problem I've always had are my hermits killing off my snails. I've been keeping a mix of blue and red hermits, and well as a mix of snails. What I've found is that sooner or later, my hermits kill off nearly all my snails and I'm left to buy more again.

So....can your cleanup crew consists of snails only, and will it be sucessful in keeping the tank clean?

Thanks,

Scott

 

[d3rryc]

Blue-legged hermits have a notorious rep for killing snails, whereas the Mexican red-legged and the scarlet hermits aren't as prone to snacking on escargot, but it's still a risk. I've gone to using peppermint shrimp instead of hermits in my tanks for that reason.

 

[davocean]

I never use hermits for that reason, and I also don't like pep's for that reason too.
I use astrea and cerith snails, a ton of them.

 

[strike2867]

I use a self replenishing crew of micro snails. At night the entire tank is covered in them.

 

[drauka99]

No hermits here, well there are 2 in the sump refugium but thats it.

I use trochus and nassarius snails

 

[hugo209]

i use blue and red legged hermits in my 240g, i found that if you you tie dried seaweed to a rock once or twice a week. it will keep them from attacking your snails. (except for a few here and there).

 

[steelhead77]

IMO Hermits are vital part of the clean-up crew. They are constant scavengers getting into every nook and crannie to find any leftover morsels. Also if you ever have a fish die and you can't find it, they make short work of the carcass. I think hermits will leave snails alone if they have a sufficient supply of shells in which to move into when they outgrow the current one. I always keep a nice supply from which to choose from when they want a new home.

 

[ludnix]

IMO Hermits are vital part of the clean-up crew. They are constant scavengers getting into every nook and crannie to find any leftover morsels. Also if you ever have a fish die and you can't find it, they make short work of the carcass. I think hermits will leave snails alone if they have a sufficient supply of shells in which to move into when they outgrow the current one. I always keep a nice supply from which to choose from when they want a new home.

I would agree, in some ways I think the hermits are more important than the snails when something goes wrong. Usually your tank can populate itself with colonista, asterina stars, and stomatellas which can take care of the role of the snails without costing so much. I only purchase snails after the tank has cycled but not given enough time to build up a large population of natural algae grazers.

 

[cjs3055]

I have 45 red leg hermits in a 55 and haven't had any problems with my hermits and snails. I have herd that blue hermits are very aggressive towards snails

 

[TripleT]

So....can your cleanup crew consists of snails only, and will it be sucessful in keeping the tank clean?

Don't forget pods and bristleworms.

 

[ShipWreck2]

Snails in the display tank, hermits in the sump. Hermits will pick up the food that settles in the sump and the snails will clean the algae off. Hermits will attack and kill a snail for the shell not just for food. In fact a hermit will attack another hermit and pull it out of the shell as well if it can.

 

[rivoth]

Amphipods will clean up anything that a hermit would, and with a whole lot less risk. Plus they can fit in places that no hermit could reach.

 

[cloak]

There not really needed, but I like to have one or two rumbling around. There actually really only there to clean up a dead snail or small fish if worst comes to worst. Clean up the carrion I guess you could say. I think if you keep numbers to a minimum there really shouldn't be any problems. You load your tank up with them, bad things will happen, plain & simple. I've got one scarlet in a 20 gallon right now and it's been a model citizen. I had two scarlets and an electric blue in my old 60 gallon tank and didn't have any issues either.

 

[Lyfey]

I just recently banished all my hermits (only 6 now) to my fuge. I have lost at least 50-100$ worth or cerith and astrea snails to these 6 blue hermits. If you do have blue hermits or red hermits that attack your snails, Trochus snails seem to be the most resilient IMO.

-Chris

 

[davocean]

I tried hermits several times, different ones, and tried adding shells for them and they still went after my snails.
I happen to agree there are other creatures that will eat what the hermits would eat, and w/ less risk, but many seem pretty fond of their hermits, I'm just not one of those people.

 

[Neogenocide]

Well....after reading all of this, I think I'm going to try and go without crabs. My current tank doesn't produce very much algae at all, which leads me to believe that is the cause of the attacks. If worse comes to worse, it's easy to add some hermits later on. Thanks for all the replies guys!!!

FYI...I attribute the low algae growth to the LED's over the tank. The light is much more "directed" into the tank which leads to a LOT less algae on the glass.

Scott

 

[MedRed]

I prefer a crab free tank. There are enough varieties of snails to take care of your CUC needs.

 

[Dadekster]

I run 3 hermits in a 300 gallon and the rest is taken care of by trochus, cerith, nassarius snails, 3 conchs and two brittlestars, plus a turbo or two. That's what I bought at least to take care of things. The tank has tons of micro stuff as well which is all free and free can be a good thing and if left to its own devices would probably take care of everything other than scraping the sides every now and then.

Like many others I used to keep a bunch of hermits for clean up, but it never failed, they'd sooner or later find the snails and kill them for food or shelter. Who knows. Interesting thing is that hermits in nature aren't even found on a true reef. Guess they are considered more intertidal/tidal species?

 

[aleonn]

I don't trust any hermits or crabs with my corals. However, that's a good idea to put them in the sump, I may do that actually.

 

[jasonrp104]

I like to keep a few to take care of any snail deaths that I miss. I've got 3 or 4 blue legs in a 45 with 40ish nass, 2 cerith, and 2 large turbos.