red and blue legged hermits are eating my snails

[keith10]

My red and blue legged hermits are eating my snails. I have caught then at least twice. They are getting big as well. Can they get too big. It seems as soon as a snail turns over, before I can get it turned right a hermit is trying to eat it. I feed the tank one time a day. Do you think I need to feed more.

thanks for any help or comments you fine folks may have

 

[Grkgod36]

When thy start growing they will kill snails for their shells , it's always good to put a few bigger empty shells in there for them

 

[snorvich]

Hermits will kill snails.

 

[GimpyFin]

Blue legged are the worst for taking out snails. IMO, they are best suited for the sump/refugium.

 

[CStrickland]

Hermits will kill snails for funsies, and for their shells. That's why they are "hermits" cause they can't make their own home, they inhabit the shells of the critters they kill. So you can buy extra shells that are bigger for them to move into when they outgrow whatever they're carrying on their back. But still, it's in their nature to murder. Some say that diff species are more or less prone to violence, if you're ranking crabs for murderous tendencies blue legs are at the top. It's kinda relative

 

[Sapelo]

They only good place for hermits is in your sump (if you have room) otherwise not in your tank at all.

 

[snorvich]

They only good place for hermits is in your sump (if you have room) otherwise not in your tank at all.

I agree. Crabs, in general, actually.

 

[BigEZ77]

I actually pulled out my blue legs for this reason. Now my display has just about every type of snail (around 30 in total), 5 scarlet reef hermits (rarely see them), a porcelain crab (never see it) and a fighting conch. They seem to be doing the job well.

 

[homer1475]

My scarlet hermits have yet to murder any of my snails. Actually I have several large empty snail shells laying(some bought, some from snails that have died from being upside down) around and my hermits are still in their original shell even after molting several times.

 

[A.Astore]

I have a few different types of hermits in the DT and haven't had issues with them killing my snails; however, they are very opportunistic so I wouldn't put it past them to eat a snail if it was flipped for any length of time. I do have a lot of shells laying around though too so I don't know if that has cut back on them being murderous or not.

 

[g_langley]

I've had four Dwarf Blue Legs since August 2015 and until recently they have not touched any snails. I then bought a batch of 5 Astreas which were dispatched in short order for fun, they didn't take the shells. However, they don't bother my Trochus, Cerith or Nassarius though.

tbh, I like the crabs, plenty of character and they give each other "cuddles" - probably trying to nick each others shells!

 

[A.Astore]

What's funny is I have Astreas that they have not touched. We wanted the hermits more than the snails but grabbed a few snails for the initial nasty stage of the system. If only these water creatures would be easy to label as X killer...

 

[Shawn O]

Blue legs seem to get a bad rap for snails deaths. I've seen my larger dwarf zebra messing with anything it finds. In the year I've had my tank, I went from about 6 blue legs to 1, a few red legs to 1, 2 thin stripes to 1, I've had about 6 scarlets and only lost one (to a red starfish). Both of my dwarf zebras are still alive. Going by the numbers it's either the dwarf zebras or the scarlets that do the most murder among the hermits. I think in order to keep hermits, they need to be given plenty of meaty chunks to eat or they'll find their own, one way or another.
I've seen the larger dwarf zebra munching on a shrimp more than a couple of times. :O
Snails get eaten, some just die and then get eaten. Everything that dies is going to be eaten in a sw tank.

 

[Luke Schnabel]

I officially took all my crabs out of my tank and put them in my fuge. I was tired of spending money replacing my snails for them to eat.

 

[Shawn O]

A win-win for the crabs and snails.