The Renaming of Blue Leg Hermits

[chad_pierce]

I've read good and bad about these little jewels. I've had a my reef set up for about seven weeks. I've gone through a small amount (comparitively) of algae growth. But, there is this ONE live rock that has almost been removed because of it's GREAT LAWN of hairy grass. I enterred my second batch of blue leg hermits this past weekend. This morning when I did my normal "scope out" of the aquarium, and six of them covered this lawn, and they completely mowed it down within about an hour. No more grass! It was an ugly brownish-green grass and I'm sure it would have been a nuisance at a later time. So, I am taking it upon myself to make the official renaming of the Blue Leg Hermit Crab to Grass Gultcher Hermit

Just thought I'd share,
Chad

 

[chad_pierce]

By the way, I'm now on the hunt for a candidate for renaming, to help me rid several batches of newly forming bubble algae.
Chad

 

[nick danger]

Gosh, you need to give me those hermits!

Mine I renamed Snail Mass Murderer No Algea Touchers. Then they went back to the LFS who, to my dismay, resold them under the name "blue-leg hermit". Pfft.

 

[chad_pierce]

Sorry to hear about your snails. It looks like Hermits have this split personality thing going on.

 

[yznhmr]

I am way on Nick's side i have all dead snails, and forever growing BLH, they wont touch the hair, only snails..

 

[skylsdale]

I'd like to name them "little #$%&*!-ers"...I took some from a friend who was taking down his tank. Only 2 astreas left..and a bunch of astrea shells with blue legs walking around the tank. I think they even hijacked some of my scarlet hermits.....

 

[Mouse]

Ever wanted to fund a war from both sides, yes you too can turn your reef tank into a post apocalyptic battle zone!

Just add 20 blue legged bastard muther ****ers, and 20 red legged gems. And watch them fight to the death.

Red legs will park themselfs in a patch and solwly much away to their hearts content. IMO the blue legged hermets from hell just rip it up spit it out rape snails pillage red legs. I want to crush them all........ ..aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

 

[Lunchbucket]

emerald crab should do a number on the bubble algae

later
Lunchbucket

 

[Alice]

A friend of mine (Fishdaddy is his nick on the boards) renamed his "Blue Legged Huns!"

 

[Anonymous]

To the people that are losing all their snails to their hermits - did you have shells for the hermits to move into? My hermits have never touched a live snail and I attribute it to the fact that there are plenty of grow out shells for them to move in to. I've got blue legs and good size scarlets. In my tank I mean

 

[yznhmr]

there are prob 20 -25 empty snail shells for the blue bastards to move into, but they choose already occupied shells !!when i ****ch tanks in the next 2 weeks im taking out all of my blue legs, all red for me from now on, i think they ate my emarld crabs also( my blue leggs have gottn quite large), my emarlds keep dissapearing... no i dont have a mantis.. but a valid idea.. the only critter that is still around is my blue leggs, they have become carnivores, not eating any algee.
Death to the blue team!!

 

[chad_pierce]

Ok.. Ok.. Guess what, I have to now name one of them a pain in the A*& Yellow Polyp eater. Now he's munching on my new Yellow Polyps. Grr.. Just when I was praising the little B*^t*rds.

 

[SnoopDog]

I totally agree, I purchased two clean up kits in a year. Complete with hermits. Only a few snails and hermits left. Now a year later I have a large variety of snails only, including Nassarius Snails. No more hermits !

 

[jethro]

Sounds like some folks lost some snails and the crabs "scavengers" are getting blamed for the killings when all they're realy doing was cleaning up.

I have 5 turbos 12 blue legs and 3scarlets and plenty of shells for my crabs.

My crabs don't bother my snails. But I used to lose snails and was blaming my crabs until I learned that you have to spend a long time acclimating snails or they won't last much longer than a couple of weeks.

Another thing you have to watch out for is a LFS that doesn't aclimate the snails. Snails are very sensitive to salinity changes, even affected by daily top off for evaperation.

[ July 07, 2001: Message edited by: jethro ]

 

[Jazzcat]

My blue legs began disappearing mysteriously. I couldn't figure out what was happening to them. One day, I decided to count how many were left. So I stuffed some food inside a shell to bring them over (the shell was to keep my shrimp or fish from eating the food). The shell was one that a blue leg had inhabited and discarded. So I dropped this shell in the tank, and what happens? My serpent starfish comes hauling a** over, grabs the shell full of food, and shoves the *entire thing* in his maw! Shell and all. Now he's got this *enormous* hump.

Blue leg disappearances: mystery solved.

Now I have *big* scarlet hermits, and they don't disappear! (Plus, they're much more amiable than the "blue huns!")

 

[Bob Gardner]

I think it's worth saying that there are at least two species of hermits sold as Blue legs and the ones that I have cause no trouble at all in my reef tank and have lived with red hermits without fighting. It is -of course- a requirement to provide growing on shells for them otherwise you shouldn't be surprised if they fight or kill for a new shell. The Blue legs in question are Clibanarius tricolor and the Red hermits are Paguristes cadenati.

 

[mustangsv0]

i just got some the other day, and today i see them on my coral, i saw one on one of my montipora's (my favorites) and now the monti isn't coming out very well, i'm thinking of catching them and giving them away.

 

[yznhmr]

hey bob got any pics showing the diff?

 

[Jazzcat]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bob Gardner:
<STRONG>It is -of course- a requirement to provide growing on shells for them </STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A good place to get shells is at an arts & crafts store. They usually have "decorative" sea shells that do the job niceley

 

[cindywennin]

Hate 'em!
After the algae got scarce they mowed down my daisy polyps. My polyps kept disappearing...stake-out time. Caught the blue legs on my polyps just as the last one was snipped. Managed to grab the little bougar and feed it to the mantis in my other tank

! Sweet revenge!
Cindy