Hermit crabs in my sump eating bubble algae!

[KonradTO]

Hi all,
I have a serious BA problem in my 32g.
The other day I was doing some stuff in the sump and I noticed that there is no BA there. In the sump I keep in exile 4 hermits, which I think are the reason why I have no BA there. So I decided to test this and I placed some resistant frags (chalice and mushroom), whose plug was covered with BA, and in less that 24 h plugs were completely clean. I mean no visible residual algae, nothing.
So now I am wondering whether I could slowly move one by one the rocks which have BA in my sump and give them a cleaning session. Any suggestion on how to avoid to stress the sps frags which are growing on the rocks? Maybe I could keep the fuge light at minimum, but what about the flow? Would 1 night without flow stress my sps frags? Otherwise I could build a cage with eggcrate and move the hermits to the dt and keep them confined. The point is that I think they have better food alternatives in my dt so rather than eating BA they will eat my corals.
I finally got my sps to grow properly and I don't want to risk to stress them too much..

 

[blaxsun]

Might be easier to bring the crabs to the corals vs. corals to the crabs.

 

[KonradTO]

Might be easier to bring the crabs to the corals vs. corals to the crabs.

Yes, I thought so. I might have to make a cage so they wont go around, make damage and feed on other sources. I tried before to introduce them in my dt but they provided little benefit and in turns made a mess. I have seen them attacking my cuc and bother gonioporas. That's why they are now stable residents in my sump

 

[AquaDaniel]

What kind of hermit crabs are they?

 

[KonradTO]

Few species, a couple of them are definitely the blue legged. One individual is coming from the mediterranean sea (I collected him accidentally with some caulerpa some time ago). He's quite huge now. I am testing which one of them has a taste for BA and if I find something interesting I will report back. The point is that I think that when they are in the DT they get "distracted" by other food sources. For my next tank I think I will plumb an additional small tank for such purposes. In this way I can move things there and treat separately from the dt.

 

[flyingscampi]

I have a hermit with black legs and he eats bubble algae.

 

[KonradTO]

I have a hermit with black legs and he eats bubble algae.

Oh its quite similar to mine! Is he from some mediterranean source?

 

[KonradTO]

I think the Genus of mine is Clibanarius sp.

 

[flyingscampi]

I think the Genus of mine is Clibanarius sp.

I have no idea what mine is. The LFS helpfully called them 'Black Legged Hermit Crabs'...

 

[Lavey29]

I wish I could get my hermits to eat bubble algae.

 

[KonradTO]

I wish I could get my hermits to eat bubble algae.

The point is that they probably do if you isolate them somewhere without food alternatives. I feed from time to time my fuge but there is so much stuff there that it lasts for seconds. It is probably 1/3 of my 10g sump, so let's say 3-4g. In there I have 4 hermits, tons of bristle worms and birstle stars, pods etc. Live rocks there are CLEAN.
This morning I just tried to move the big mediterranean hermit to my DT, since I am working from home and I can check now and then if he's eating corals or making some mess. And I cannot tell if he's interested in BA at all. There are far too many things he's running behind and feeding on. I will report back in few days if I see my BA population decrease but I think the key is the lack of alternative food in the fuge/sump.