Hermit crabs yes/no?
- Thread starter mstasa
- Start date
so id say its a no gohere are some pics of my tank. i also have this red cotton like stuff growing on some new live rock that i bought when i upgraded my tank 2 weeks ago. how can i get rid of the green algae and the red cotton stuff. i dono what it is?
Thanks
sorry for the low quality photos i only have a camera phone.
Thanks
sorry for the low quality photos i only have a camera phone.
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JeF4y
El Conquistidor
Red hermits. Have 5 of them and have since day 1. I haven't caught them eating anything but am sure they have evicted a snail or two. They are fairly worthless for algae control.
If you want algae control, get big mexican turbos. Hands down, from an invert perspective, you can't do better IMHO.
A tuxedo urchin will mow down everything, down to bare rock (including coraline), but they are SLOOOOOOWWWW eaters...
If you want algae control, get big mexican turbos. Hands down, from an invert perspective, you can't do better IMHO.
A tuxedo urchin will mow down everything, down to bare rock (including coraline), but they are SLOOOOOOWWWW eaters...
neoalchemist74
New member
the green algea on the sand, I would just removethat by hand and then maybe increase your flow in that area. Then get a medium sized turbo snail. Personally my most affective algea cleaner is a red purple and blue urchin, I can't remember exactly what he is but he's closely related to a tuxedo urchin, he will mow down a patch your siize in a couple of hours when he feels like it but he will also wreak havoc on corraline algea(which I don't care about).
As for as hermits , I also find them very annoying but I like to keep 1or2 just to quickly clean up uneaten food.
As for as hermits , I also find them very annoying but I like to keep 1or2 just to quickly clean up uneaten food.
The Escaped Ape
In The Canopy
The thing I'm most alarmed by in your current stocking list is the sand dollar. They don't survive in aquariums smaller than a few thousand gallons with a well matured DSB AFAIK.
I keep (or kept, broke down my 65 in APR) dwarf zebra, dwarf blue leg, halloween and blue electric hermits.
The dwarf hermits are harmless. They only grow to about the size of a nickel max and thus are far to small to take on any decent sized snails. I fighting conch would cleran the floor with them. I would make these the bulk of a cleanup crew.
The Halloween hermits are my favorite with their close packed fine orange lines. They are moderate in size, and as far as I know very hamless.
The electric blues get bigger, about half dollar size, and I know they have taken out a few snails. But their color is bright and fantastic and if I have to sacrafice a few bucks in snails a year so what. I only kept three for that reason though.
I think what people are missing is the vibrant and varied colors of hermits. I think they add a lot to a reef, and you are missing out if you banish them entirely.
The dwarf hermits are harmless. They only grow to about the size of a nickel max and thus are far to small to take on any decent sized snails. I fighting conch would cleran the floor with them. I would make these the bulk of a cleanup crew.
The Halloween hermits are my favorite with their close packed fine orange lines. They are moderate in size, and as far as I know very hamless.
The electric blues get bigger, about half dollar size, and I know they have taken out a few snails. But their color is bright and fantastic and if I have to sacrafice a few bucks in snails a year so what. I only kept three for that reason though.
I think what people are missing is the vibrant and varied colors of hermits. I think they add a lot to a reef, and you are missing out if you banish them entirely.
Mavrk
New member
I have heard of them eating zooanthids, but that is purely anecdotal.
I typed my answer too fast and I wrote the wrong thing above. I didn't mean bumblebee snails were not reef safe, rather that they are not good for a DSB. They will eat up your infauna.
Thanks for the correction...
The Escaped Ape
In The Canopy
Your sand bed is too small to sustain a sand dollar, so it is very slowly starving to death. 3 weeks is far too short a period of time to be called encouraging I'm afraid. By the time it's looking like it's in trouble and you take it out, it'll be too late.
But the bigger problem is that these things are sold at all to aquarists. They shouldn't be sold at all, given what is written about their care requirements. I blame the person who sold it to you as much as I wish you hadn't bought it. A lesson for next time maybe about researching every inhabitant as well as you're researching the hermit question!
BTW, I'm avoiding hermits for the same reasons others have given. I've stuck with a combination of ring cowries, Trochus sp., Nassarius and Strombus snails.
I started my cleanup crew with 50 hermits. A mix of 25 blue leg, 10 red leg dwarfs, and 20 white legs. I also added 5 medium sized Mexican turbos. The blue legs made quick work of all the turbos within a week. They actually would gang up on the snail by all climbing on it when it was near the sand or on a rock and pull it to the ground then make it a buffet. The red legs dwindled to one that inhabited a 2 inch shell and didn't move for 3 months until it was large enough now it fills the 2 inch shell with ease. The white legs were all gone in a month. The blue legs slowly killed each other off over 2 years along with about 50 margarita snails and 10 more Mex turbos. I now have maybe 10 hermits in my 55 that are mostly white legs and red legs with 1-2 blue legs. I had about 10 blue legs a month or so ago, but I have a beast of a bristle worm that hunts them down. I thought bristle worms were mostly nocturnal, but yesterday I watched the 6" long worm come out from a mini colony of purple death zoas that he lives in to flip over a hermit and pull it from it's shell and eat it alive. I was pretty amazed that it happened in the middle of the day and that my purple deaths are hosting a hermit killing serpent lol
