Hermit crab question

[johnny313]

I have about 20 blue leg hermits in my tank. well, I just bought some frags and the hermits are all over the corals. The corals are just softies.

is it bad that are are on them?

 

[disc1]

Not really. They will close up while he is there, but open again when he is gone. He is probably cleaning the algae out from between the polyps.

 

[aleonn]

So far my blue leg hermits are behaving. I'm keeping an eye out not just on corals, but also if the hermits bother smaller snails.

 

[johnny313]

they attacked my snails already... prime real estate!

 

[rambochu]

Holy mess, how big a tank did you get that many hermits for?

Suggestions:

If these are clibanarius tricolor, I'd suggest supplying them with some cerith or nassa shells. They don't care for astrea or turbo shells. Also, you may want to consider feeding them.

 

[Inexplicable]

As long as your tank has finer algae for the hermits to feed on, I have found that blue legs leave corals alone. Once you start starving them, they may munch on the edges of some of your corals. Feeding them would mitigate the situation if you have low amounts of edible algae.

 

[johnny313]

Holy mess, how big a tank did you get that many hermits for?

Suggestions:

If these are clibanarius tricolor, I'd suggest supplying them with some cerith or nassa shells. They don't care for astrea or turbo shells. Also, you may want to consider feeding them.

I have a 90 gallon with 20 hermits.... I didnt think that was too many since I was told people in here stock one per gallon....?

 

[rambochu]

As long as they've got enough to eat, you could probably stock one to a gallon. Otherwise, you're asking for them to start harassing snails and coral. I don't know how much algae/detritus you've got for them to eat, so I couldn't say if that was too many or not. For example: I have a variety of hermits (12 total) in a 14G Biocube, and they've absolutely destroyed every bit of algae in there. I actually keep a large mass of chaeto for them to graze on now, and they get pellets and shrimp, and everyone's peaceful and happy.

Sorry, I actually rather like hermits and I don't like the idea of using them as CUC. They're scavengers and omnivores, and it bothers me when they get blamed for being underfed/housed and acting on it.

 

[johnny313]

my tank isnt really dirty, but I do feed them every other day with pellet food. I only have 2 fish in the tank.. yellow tang and a green chromis.