Hermit crab gone rogue?

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

So just got a brand new purple Aussie torch head on Saturday. Today (Monday) woke up to find it decimated and most of the meat gone.
I'm thinking a hermit crab gone rogue. Anyone else have issues with them going murderous?
I have a 20gal nano with only 2 hermits, a fire shrimp, Cardinal fish and some snails.
I feed frozen food once a day but I think there just may not be enough food given the size of the tank. I have other corals like frogspawn and Duncan's that have been doing great.

Webslinger · May 4, 2020

never, what kind of hermit?

Sosuke · May 4, 2020

Maybe brown jelly disease? Took my healthy torch coral and killed mine practically overnight

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

Webslinger said:
never, what kind of hermit?

Just a normal run of the mill red hermit

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

Sosuke said:
Maybe brown jelly disease? Took my healthy torch coral and killed mine practically overnight

I'll have to look into that. Does it make the flesh look all torn and gone?

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

Here are before and after pics. Ugh this hobby can suck sometimes lol.

Long Island Reefer · May 4, 2020

My Scarlet Reef hermit went rouge and completely destroyed one of my acans down the the skeleton, luckily I caught it in the act and removed him from the tank immediately. I was able to nurse the acan back to health thankfully

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

Rhogan4 said:
My Scarlet Reef hermit went rouge and completely destroyed one of my acans down the the skeleton, luckily I caught it in the act and removed him from the tank immediately. I was able to nurse the acan back to health thankfully

Thanks it makes me feel better that I'm not crazy blaming the crab. I used to have an emerald too but he took out a Duncan so I passed him to a friend. I thought I was safe with the hermits though. Thought wrong.

Sosuke · May 4, 2020

Brown jelly disease makes it look all torn and mangled IME

Sosuke · May 4, 2020

Do you see any brown strings coming off of it?

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

Sosuke said:
Do you see any brown strings coming off of it?

There were none last night and it looked good yesterday. A little now and a little this morning. Not long strings. Sort of brown around some of the remaining flesh

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

Here is another pic. There was an arm or two left but are gone since this morning.

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

Buying the jelly dicsease idea. Tried to save it by putting it on a rack today, but the rest rotted away throughout the day. This was all that was left.

mcshams · May 4, 2020

It does look like the remnants of brown jelly.

On a completely different side note. We had a few corals that we felt died or experienced near death. My wife wanted to blame the crabs, rather than other science, so we took opposite sides of a make-shift trial where I was the defense attorney for the crabs, and she was the tank district attorney (and no, we are not lawyers by trade)...but we seriously conducted a "trial" with evidence from posts from R2R and other scientific articles to determine guilt. As a sidenote...I won (not gloating in case my wife reads this), but I provided enough evidence that suggested it was likely other causes.

Sosuke · May 4, 2020

If it smells horrid then it is most likely brown jelly, especially since it had some on its remains

Hillerd86 · May 4, 2020

Yeah I'm starting to lean that way. It was a fairly large head for one crab to consume overnight. Also it does smell like dead fish. I think the crab defense attorney has done a good job.