Hermit crabs?

[Roblox84]

So ever since I had my 20 gallon reef 5 years ago I am very reluctant to keep hermit crabs and snails in one tank. I've had my hermits eat my turbo snails when I had that tank running. Currently in my 55 I have 3 or 4 turbos in there and 2 serpent stars and one regular starfish that is red, and that is it for my clean up crew. I have been considering that my cuc isn't sufficient and that I should add some hermits to it. I was just wondering if they will eat my snails or starfish again or if that was only a trait that the blue hermits had? Would my hermits be less agressive in a bigger tank or does anyone know of a very docile species that I can buy?

I also forgot to mention that I am currently fighting dino's and they are the toxic kind that kill my snails when they eat it. It hasn't hurt my shrimp or starfish yet but I am hoping the dino's wont poison the hermits.

 

[Josh_Canada]

well, i would personally go with an all snail CUC, f you dont like hermits, you can get snails for almost any job i can think of.

detritus- nassarius snails
glass- cerith snails
rockwork- turbos/nerites

If your having an algae problem, i love tuxedo urchins, compact; yet just as hungry as the rest, mine ate 1-3" HA in my tank in a week, picks ocassionally at coraline, but definetly the workhorse of the tank, and only $20 vs god knows what.

 

[rambochu]

Holy GOD how big were those tricolors?! They took down a turbo?!

IMO, you really can't treat hermits as regular CUC. They don't like living off algae, and if they're not fed, they will get aggressive. They'll also get aggressive about shells, which could mean bad things for your snails. As for docile species - your scarlet reef hermit is about as docile and boring as it gets. Tricolors and red tips are next on the list, and then you have things that are still pretty docile, but get large, like blue and orange knuckles. And then you have things like left-handed and zebra hermits, which are very, very, very efficient at eating dead things.

I'm not sure if they'll eat slime algae. I know mine did, and with a passion, but then I've got a hermit crab tank. I'm not as fond of my tuxedo urchin - he seems to only like encrusting algae, so my coraline's gone, and he's working on the caluerpa I put in for nitrate control (my hermits graze too much on my chaeto, so I had to find something they wouldn't eat).

Either way, hermits aren't a terrible thing, they just don't belong on a CUC. Snails admittedly do it better, and if you can tolerate an urchin kidnapping frags and such, they do it better, too. If you're looking to get hermits, it's probably because you're like me and find them fascinating.

 

[Dizzle63]

Scarlet hermits. They do a great job of eating algae and are nonaggressive.