Hermit Crabs - A Poll

[squampton]

I always keep a handful of small blue leg hermits in my tank, I have no problem with them, they spend most of their time on the sand anyhow and never noticed any damage to corals, nor do they seem to bother my snails or fish, if they do kill my snails they are doing so very slowly as I have not noticed any decline in snail population.

 

[biophilia]

An army of (small, blue-legged) hermits is probably the singular reason my nano is algae free and filled with healthy, well-fed coral rather than a mono-species hair algae fuzz fest. They’re also great at immediately scrubbing all nuisance algae from the plugs of new frags and rapidly consuming fish that die in the rock work.

 

[cracker]

I confess to having a few hermits. I have one not too big hermit black legs with white bands in the 75. This one get's to stay cause Iv'e had him for so long .
Now, I have 3 in the refugium under the 180. These I collected from local waters . they are voracious eaters ,will eat anything they can get & can grow quit large. These guys will never go in a display. My issues are algae so I rely on algae eating snails for this. As for any other type of crab? No Thanks !

 

[JonoB]

I only have 2 hermits in my 30 gallon tank, one red legged and one blue (Rock em' and Sock em'). I love watching them, and they haven't done anything destructive yet. They seem to do their jobs and are fun to watch.

 

[CivicS14]

Just did a tank reboot after a move and lost everything. Never again with hermits. Always annoyed me they were always killing each other and snails over shells (and yes, I had plenty of empty shells lying around). This new tank is all sorts of snails and they do the same job.

 

[Vahanyos]

I think i'm slowly working to remove my hermit crabs as well - I do have a few of the scarlet hermits that are blue/black, all RED, and a big punk that is orange. I think they call him a halloween crab... They will probably all go in my sump because I do notice them rock climbing on my acro's.... I dont know if they are stressing them out or not, but I dont want to risk it. The mentality I have is no they are not stressing them out because it's nature... in the wild i'm sure acro's get crawled on all the time, but as long as they are not eating them then it's good. However, I THINK i saw my big orange one picking at my acro... unless there was a pest on it that it was picking at... I dont know..

They are good at eating anything that died in the tank tho - that's the best part. They will leave nothing lol.

 

[Billldg]

Their should be a selection for never used them.

 

[tiggs]

I always have hermits in my tanks, but only keep a very small amount for the tank size. For example, I have a 14G cube that has 3 dwarf hermits. My two personal rules to divert them from killing snails are to have a bunch of extra shells in there of all sizes and to make sure they have a constant food source. In my situation right now, I have a reproducing colony of dwarf limpets, so they help keep the population in control and leave the snails alone.

 

[Jerry Ebner]

I don't see the poll on the app side but my scarlet crab doesn't seem to brother the snails or corals

 

[ZoWhat]

Hermits need to get out the house more often and enjoy their life.

 

[PhreeByrd]

I have kept tanks with hermits and without, and really have not seen any differences in the tanks with or without them. It seems pretty clear that if they survive/thrive in your tank that they are indeed finding food, which means they are cleaning 'stuff' up that nothing else wants or can access. Whether that is truly important I can't say. Logically, if they are finding uneaten food and consuming it, then they are doing something to reduce nutrients in the water. Whether that's a measurable effect remains to be proven.

However, comparing hermits vs snails as members of the cleanup crew is both meaningless and irrelevant. They serve completely different purposes, and one simply cannot replace the other. Even detritus-focused snails cannot access many of the areas a hermit crab can. Likewise, a hermit crab will do little for the sand bed, and nothing for the glass.

I have occasionally seen hermits munching on algae, but they are just not large enough to impact a serious algae problem unless you have huge numbers of them.
Other than climbing onto them, I never saw crabs bother any corals or polyps at all.
I don't have any crabs in my tanks now, and am not rushing out to buy any anytime soon.

 

[Perry]

Big fan of Mexican Red Leg Hermits here

 

[srad750c]

I have blue legged, my only problem is that they knock stuff over, but that’s no much of a problem. I have more issues with red dice shrimp getting food from my inverts after I feed them. They are coming out of tank very soon.

 

[lmarlowe]

I have some bigger hermits and have seen them dig up my nass snails and eat them. I voted disagree since I’m considering removing them and going with a snail only CUC

Got 1/2 my giant tongas. So I have mixed feelings on them.

 

[Mjl714]

Moving away from all but the smallest hermits. Prefer the snails.