hermit & condy

[dlsmith21]

I had to temporarily take my condy anemone out of my tank and put it in a FOWLR system. We have a red-leg hermit in the tank that I was afraid of, for the fact that they are natural predators to the condy. Well it hasn't tried to kill it but is doing something that I was wondering about. The hermit keeps pushing himself onto the condy until it attaches to his shell, then, he just walks around like nothing at all is going on. We have taken the condy off 3 times so far for feeding and to just see if it would happen again. It has and the hermit seems intent on keeping it attached to his shell. Is this normal behavior?

 

[seapug]

there are some hermit crabs that put anemones on their shells, but the species they typically use are small. Is your crab a Dardanus crab or the common leg legged reef hermit? If it's a Dardanus (typically larger crabs with "hairy" claws). If it is then it is probably trying to carry the anemone on its shell. If it's the common red legged reef hermit it probably won't bother the anemone, but they typically don't carry them on their shells.