Have you heard of this before?

[Noah 123]

This doesn't really have to do with the whole saltwater idea, but have any of you ever heard of clibinarius fonticola? It is the only true freshwater hermit crab, and only lives in shells from horned nerite snails. I've seen them ONCE, and they were $18 each! They only grow to an inch long!

My lfs also gets in freshwater clams for $3.99!

 

[Noah 123]

Has anyone read my post? I think it's pretty interesting!

 

[rssjsb]

Yeah, I think they sell them at an online FW plant site that I sometimes browse (I have a FW planted tank, too). I've never tried to keep them, but I understand they're kind of difficult.

 

[Calappidae]

It's interesting to hear about them. Just makes me wonder what's exactly different compared to SW hermits. More food needed since our's pretty much eat off rock?

 

[seymour47]

I wouldn't think you would need an additional food supplement just because it's FW. Plenty of FW algae out there.

 

[rssjsb]

I wouldn't think you would need an additional food supplement just because it's FW. Plenty of FW algae out there.

Unfortunately, I can testify to this.

Ok, I just went and looked again and it turns out I've been spreading bad information. The crabs I saw were actually advertised as FW fiddlers, not hermits. So never mind. /slinks away/

 

[Calappidae]

I'm tempted to ask my lfs if they can get them in.. for observation reasons as I'm really curious about these guys.

 

[seymour47]

I would honestly be surprised if anyone were able to get these in reality. When something is only known to live in a single locality it usually becomes protected. I supposed I could do some searching around to figure it out, but I'm feeling lazy.

That said, I read the original published description and it's pretty interesting. Although, most of the scientists I work with would be horrified by the complete lack of water chemistry data from the pool they live in. I know I was. Heh heh heh.

 

[Shawn O]

Freshwater hermits would be cool, but as you said, they are protected since they only live in a single spot in the world. Would love to have some but think that even if some scientists were to successfully acclimate them to captivity and get them to reproduce successfully (they would certainly sell like hotcakes) there would be a lot of deaths to them and saltwater hermits due to confusion and ignorance. I can only imagine these FW crabs being put into SW and vice versa. Terrible way to die for these type of creatures.