Murder & Mayhem

[LornaS]

Do crabs or snails attack each other? I thought these guys live peacefully amongst the live rock. Today I see there are a few piles of hermit legs which look like hermit crab remains........interesting. There are also the odd empty shell laying about.....

 

[ElectronRider]

I got some hermits that were not red or blue legged, they were green, they had a field day with my snails until i finnally got em all out of the tank. I am starting to suspect that maybe the pistol shrimp has fresh escargot once in a while too. I guess ya just have to watch em close for a bit see what happens.

 

[bertoni]

Crabs and hermit crabs are predatory. They will eat what they can catch, which definitely can include snails. I don't keep hermit crabs or true crabs any more for that reason, although a couple of hermit crabs in a 75g tank might not do too much damage. Otherwise, it's best to think of snails as a consumeable.

 

[Pandora]

When people talk about "reef safe", I think there's a misunderstanding that if something comes as part of a cleanup crew, they just dutifully go about sucking up detritus and inanimate things from the substrate. In the real reef, there is constant competition, and things are always eating other things. In reality, the animals we keep are usually in a precarious balance most of the time. Hermit crabs usually live by scavenging, but they are opportunistic feeders that will take advantage of a situation when they see it. Sometimes this means picking on another invert it sees as weaker or a coral that's not doing so well. I have seen a lot of hermits get quite nasty, they will pull other hermits or snails out of their shells if they can and feed on them, and sometimes take the shells for their own. Do a search for "hermit problems" here and you'll read about aggressive hermits all the time. Some species and individuals are better than others. I have a couple small red legged & some blue legged hermits that usually coexist somewhat peacefully, but sometimes I do find a dead body with legs that is half eaten in the tank, and yesterday, caught one of the larger ones tearing apart the tube of one of my tube worms. To me, it's still worth it to see the little buggers foraging around, so I keep most of them but banish them to the sump when they reach a certain size.

 

[hootie51]

sorry to butt in here, but is it better when deciding on a clean up crew to stick with either crabs or snails then?

 

[techigirl78]

I have almost all snails. A few hermits in my 125 cause I find them amusing. Just make sure that you get the appropriate snails. Some snails like the bumblebee eat the sand fauna.