Red Scarlet Hermit Crab & Feather Duster

[Anonymous]

Hermits will eat everything.

Don't put them into an aquarium to eat algea and expect them to starve after the algae runs out. They like to pick at the corraline on top of rocks as well.

 

[Anonymous]

Are you sure you have scarlet hermits? Look for the yellow eyes. Have never seen scarlets practice the behavior you describe.

If no yellow eyes, you have Red Leg hermits, which are predatory, IME. Some unaware LFS will try to pass off the Red Legs as Scarlets. The Blue legs are also very predatory, IME, and by far, the worst. Have seen them kill snails and each other, even in well fed tank. Scarlet hermits are the best way to go, IMO, and do their job well. Have never seen them fight or attack snails, all I buy now.


elvis

 

[Anonymous]

Thank's for the reply,

About wondering if it is scarlet. I'm pretty sure they have yellow eyes and the rest is red.

Richard.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Is it normal for Red Scarlet Hemit Crab to eat snails. Almost every morning when I wake up I check the aquarium and I notice that the hermit are eating a snails. Could it be because they where dying. The snails are there side and the hermit are eating them.

And the other thing is I can't seem to be able to keep feather duster. Where do put them. Do you put them on the sand or between rocks. I'm putting them between rocks. My water parameters are all ok.

Thank's in advance
Richardl

 

[Anonymous]

Do you have plenty of "upgrade" shells for your hermits? They sometimes attack snails if the snail's shell looks like it would make a roomier home. (Unfortunately, IME, this sometimes happens even if there are empty shells around ... they'd apparently rather take somebody else's home than move into an unoccupied one.)

Another possibility--what kind of snails do you have? Some snails (astreas, for example) can't upright themselves when they get turned over and so they die. The hermits could just be making a meal of weak or dead snails.

Just a few thoughts ...

 

[Anonymous]

Hermit crabs, even reef safe ones, are almost all opportunistic omnivores. The advantage of the blue legs is they stay pretty small so they have a harder time attacking your snails, etc. Don't the scarlet crabs get somewhat larger?

Snails will die from starvation if you have too many of them. If they get knocked off the glass or whatever and they land on the substrate, usually they get set upon pretty quickly by the crabs because they are unprotected when on their sides.

Feather dusters, I believe, come from silty/muddy substrates (I assume you're talking about the big ones). They make their tubes out of that real fine silt. In a reef tank, there isn't really a similar substrate. I put mine in the sand and they seem to be OK there. The big problem with feather dusters is lack of food. Unless you have an established tank with lots of plankton, or you're feeding plankton of some kind, they seem to slowly starve. I've read that they should get enough food just from feeding the tank, but that doesn't match up with lots of stories I've heard and my own early experiences.

-Jim