Red legged hermit crab advice

[Ruminant]

Hi all

This is my first post. Been getting some good advice from my local stores, but have contradicting info regarding the hermits I bought.

Bought these guys early on as part of the clean up crew and the guy at that shop stated that we'd need to supply new shells as they grew, obvious really. When I went to the other local shop and asked if they had spare shells for sale. They said it was best to not supply new shells otherwise the crabs would go from algae eating to purely meat.

I've seen a few moults and the guys are still picking at the algae. Which is the correct advice?


Cheers in advance

 

[Sapelo]

Regardless of what they eat, they are still going to grow and still going to need new/larger shells.
Depending on the other members of your cleanup crew (CUC), the crabs will simply steal shells from snails.

Welcome to the hobby!

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Red legged or Scarlet legged hermits IME are not meat eaters, the blue legged ones on the other hand are. The only crab allowed in my tank of any kind is a scarlet legged hermit.

 

[CStrickland]

I don't get it. Did they say why?
It seems like if it made any diff at all, having more shells would cut down on their predatory drive b/c they wouldn't kill a snail to take a shell...

 

[Ruminant]

Thanks for the info.

They said that if they got large enough they'd start mugging the fish

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Scarlet legged hermits will never try and eat your fish or corals for that matter. I would seriously find a different LFS to deal with.

 

[Xxero]

Red Legged Hermit Crabs are different than Scarlet Reef Hermits.

My experience with Red Legged/Red Tipped Hermit Crabs is that they are very aggressive - with eachother and with snail varieties. They can also grow large and quickly, which only makes them more aggressive. I found the key to keeping the peace with them is to provide them with lots of empty shells of different sizes, and throw an occasional chunk of raw shrimp in the tank for them to munch on. I would consider the Red Leggeds to fall more under the scavenger category than an algae eater. Although they do an incredible job with GHA. They love the stuff!

I ended up trading all of mine in for a mix of Scarlet Reef Hermits and micro Blue Legs. The Red Leggeds made me nervous.

I hear people cautioning against the Blue Legs all of the time, but I don't get it. I've never had any negative issues with the Blue Legs. They're also the chosen Hermit Crabs that come with TBS's "The Package", soOo.........what has everyone been doing? Tossing them in the trash when they arrive?

GL! :bigeyes:

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I know the red legged are different than Scarlets but have also seen both misidentified. As far as the blue legs go, you should have a talk with the dozen or so that live in my sump from being murderous bastards :hammer: Along with my murdering Emerald Green Crab

 

[Xxero]

My comment was more for the OP just to make sure...like you said, there's a lot of misidentification.

I keep my Emerald in my sump as well. :lolspin:

 

[azcrazy]

yep my 2 emeralds going to the sump tonight, cached one picking on my brain frag :deadhorse1:

 

[Dkuhlmann]

azcrazy, mine ate two royal grammas. The first one disappeared, and I saw him eating it in the RG's sleeping place :hammer: Now since he's been in the sump for about 6 months he's HUGE like 2" from point to point on his shell.