blue legged hermit question

[canmike]

I have about 5 blue legged hermits in my 40 gallon tank and just noticed one of them climbing up my yellow gorgonian. Will blue legged hermits damage my gorgonian? Will they snack on the polyps?

 

[naesco]

Yes they can. I think most of us are going the snail route and not replacing the hermits.

 

[canmike]

Not good. I guess I'll have to start tracking them down. Maybe my puffer fish would like them

I have only been doing this for a couple months. Trends sure do change fast around here!

 

[lawndoctor]

In my tank, the blue legs have killed astrea snails, the red legs have not, and both have climbed gorgonia, ricordia, and hard corals without doing the corals any apparent harm. I'm still on the fence about the trend away from hermits. I recently bought some nassarius. After I got a shipment of predatory whelks by mistake and finally eradicated them, the nassarius have done a nice job of eating excess food off the substrate. But they don't climb and pick algae out of the crevices between the rocks and corals the way the hermits do.

 

[canmike]

Hmmmmm. This causes some problems because my gorgonian is starting to collect some algae which is worrying me. Maybe the crab was just cleaning it (which would be nice)? If only the crab would explain itself to me...

Anyone else want to wage in on this?

 

[lawndoctor]

One more thing: When algae began to cover my gorgonia, I would rub it off with my fingers. This did not seem to bother the gorgonia in the least because their polyps would be out again shortly afterward. HTH.

 

[Bucktronix]

my blue legs climb all over every new thing that goes into the tank. they do a great job keeping stuff clean and the only time they have been picking at any coral was when my green gorgonian started dying. they checked it out every day and only seemed to eat the necrotic parts of it. i think they are a good addition to a reef. of course i may feel differently when they run outa stuff to clean.

 

[Dewman]

My red leg crabs were eating the new polyps on my green star polyp. They ran out of stuff to eat and I didn't have enough for them to eat. So I took them back to the LFS.
I soon had analgae problem and bought 15 blue legs. they have not bothered anything since I put them in there, but they have climbed on everything.

At night, my emerald crab sleeps clinging to the outside of my Goniopora, with all the tenticles retracted. Not sure why...?

 

[lawndoctor]

You might consider getting rid of the cleaner shrimp, depending on what kind they are. Just an idea. My sand bed came to life after my Peppermints died. I've since read that cleaner shrimp are predators of sand fauna. I'm wary of getting any new shrimp, but I'm contemplating a Scarlet Cleaner. Maybe they're not as predatory as Peppermint.

 

[canmike]

I have 2 red-stripe (or skunk or whatever other name I have seen them called) cleaners in there and they are really bold. Every time I put arm in the tank the jump on me immediately and begin picking away at my arms. They also wrestle with my seahorses for food (although the seahorse win more often than not).

I also have a scarlet cleaner who is really shy and just hangs out in his cave.

I think I have way too many cleaners for a 40 Gallon tank but I got the first 2 and was given the scarlet (hey, they go for $45 CDN around here, I wasn't going to turn it down).

Feeding time really is quite the ordeal. I squirt phytoplankton additive mixed with little mysis bits at the gorgonian and then try to keep the ravenous shrimps away with bursts of water from the feeding syringe. It works pretty poorly.

 

[canmike]

You just rubbed the algae off of the gorgonian? I'll try that tonight. I was just worried about hurting it.

The odds do seem to be stacked again my poor gorgonian. Now, everytime I feed it, the 2 cleaner shrimp run over it all pull all the food out of the polyps. Not good.

 

[khaberer]

Does anyone have a picture of a blue-legged hermit? I think that I may have one, he's got blue/purple legs with orange tips. I ask because I just inherited a tank and he's the only thing in the tank other than a few snails and star serpents, so I was wondering if I need to feed him.