Purpose of Hermit Crab
 

What is the roles of Hermit Crab beside eating left over food?

My top ten list of what Hermit crabs can do for you.

1- Kill your snails.
2- Tromp all over your corals.
3- Knock frags over.
4- Kill each other.
5- Great for throwing into your sump.
6- Steal food from your LPS corals.
7- Just generally creeping out the wife.
8- Ensure your ailing corals will die.
9- Rip small softies from their rock.
10- Great toys for cats.

Can I put them in the overflow box?

You can have little races with them.... I have built a little race track and often take a few out at a time and see who makes it to the finish line first... and the one that wins gets to live.... and then has a chance at becoming the champion.

Sounds like a stellar idea:biggrin: Unless you're serious.

My tank is 30" tall so foods left over are trap inside my overflow so that is why i asked is it OK to put one in there.

Not if there's any chance it can get into your plumbing. Could get messy...

i like to stick little pieces of tape to their feet and watch them freak out:P oh wait thats cats....nvm just go with the top ten list seems to be fair:P


ps......crab taste delicious:)

Not the best info for someone inquiring. Sure, funny, but I think this person is looking for quality info.


I use hermits. They are scavengers.

Anyone who does not properly mount frags in their tank to prevent falling is at fault.. not the hermits.

If a fish dies in your tank... give it a couple days and its gone. I do not plan to remove all my rocks to remove a dead and burried fish. Hermits make a quick meal of it.

They pick up food from the sand bed and some will help with algaes.

Avoid the zebra legs as they are the ones that do most of the coral climbing.

I would not be without. Ever. I could care less if I lose a couple to fighting. In most cases they fight over shells, and if a reefer takes that into account and provides "extra" shells for the growing hermits to utilize then you can reduce the crab fights. For $1.50 each... get them.

Take 7 and 10 out and the rest is accurate from my own experience. I will never ever advise anyone get Hermits. Their only upside in my opinion other than eating dead fish is they are easy to get rid of. I have no tolerance for a $1.50 crab irritating a $80.00 coral

Thank you every one.

My thoughts in a nutshell. Crabs are evil. KILL THEM!

I like hermits, it's not a real reef without them......:mrgreen:

My snails population are getting smaller and my hermit crab is getting bigger now he is in one of my turbo snail's shell.

dont you mean "in a snailshell"?

Maybe that's why I'm in the minority in liking hermits, I have so many stomatella, columellid and cerith snails, I haven't had to buy any in years :lol:

Wish I had stomas in this tank instead I got like a hundred limpets opposite of my old bowfront lol

I personally love hermits and have had no issues with them harming any corals. They are excellent scavengers, pretty much their sole purpose. Blue legs and scarletts do not seem to climb all over corals like the zebra legs. And as for shells j&l sells bags of probably 50shells for a couple bucks.

Agree 100%.

Micro hermits are the best. They are normally cheaper then $1.50 too. I think they are just juvenile blue legs. But I do not see them bother corals other then sps, maybe because they could easily become a meal. :mrgreen:

I like my hermits too! Q though will they eat the yellow gunk build upon the bottom of the sump?

so if a lot of you don't use hermits what do you have for a CUC, just snails? Do you use a mixture of species?

2 Astrea snails and about 8 Cowries in 77 Gallons... Hardly a clean up crew lol I like them because they are nocturnal..I believe if your tank is stable and you don't overfeed you shouldn't even need one..

You will find over time that you have more of a clean up crew then you thought. Bristle worms, spaghetti worms, brittle stars, pods......all these guys form the bulk of a good cuc and they come as part of your live rock :mrgreen:

Very good point.

Umm, about 150 snails, 2 tuxedo urchins, 5 long spine urchins, couple emerald crabs, and a big ass chiton, ( sea hare currently on tour)

Sounds like complete overkill to me lol

11. Eat the spines off of a large green brittle star
12. Moray and dwarf lionfish food

I haven't had any in my system for several years.

i dont see the need for ornamental clean up crews like snails or crabs, urchins etc in a big tank. like marie said theres more than enough cuc in a healthy tank let alone the stuff we add afterwards.

ok so while your tank was maturing what did you use?

I fell into assumption I "needed" a clean up crew when I started.. Ended up I didn't need anything. I only had a mediocre diatom bloom that I blew off with a turkey baster and netted up with a cheese cloth type of net. After a week or so it went away. Wait for a problem to arrive before you jump into buying anything. To answer your question I had the most evil of all "HERMIT" crabs and Astrea snails. Get good quality cured live rock and your chances of needing anything will be greatly reduced.

When I first started up I followed the usual recommendations and added many different snails and crabs. But not because they were needed. Only because thats what I thought I was suppose to do. In general most of them didn't last long. The crabs would kill each other and some of the snails or get eaten themselves by my fish. The snails would get stuck in the rocks or fall upside down and die or just plain starve if I bought the wrong type. More and more I witnessed a hitch hiker cleanup crew emerge so I started to question what was the point in buying all of these things? So I stopped and now the bristle worms, mini brittle stars, mini turbos, pods, mysids, astrea stars and stomatella snails do most of the work. Whats left of my store-bought crews consists of 2 abalone, an astrea snail, 1 tuxedo and 1 rock boring urchin. Thats it and if you look in my Tank Journal you'll see that I do have a relatively large system with a high bioload.

+1, my reef won't ever be without hermits. I think I have about 9 different species in my tank.

One more question. Will they scare fish at night like sand sifter goby and wrasse during their sleep?

It's kind of like asking "does your dog bite?" maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day he will. Crabs are jackals, they will take what they can when ever they can get it. I hate crabs lol

yes they will when roaming around they might bump them or fall on them from the overhang.

Crabs and other crawlies help remove detrius from coral that is not able to do so on their own just by walking over them.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog...ers-the-better

With all due respect isn't he talking about corals in the wild? I don't think we are in jeopardy of having our corals buried in sediment anytime soon. That being said we should all join together and have all crabs shipped back to the ocean where they can perform the important task of keeping our future corals safe.

Beside crabs eat dead fish what else eats dead fish?

would be easier to make of list of things that dont:P