Hermits

[Kial]

ive just added a few hermit crabs into my tank, all seem to be doing fine but my nassarius snails seem to have a taste for them!
As soon as I added them (some on the rock and some on sand) my snails went straight for them resulting in me having to basically fight them off until I decided to get them up high on the rocks.
My understanding was the hermits would attack the snails but seems the opposite for these.
A few of the hermits don’t seem to move a lot, when some are all over the place. Is this normal for hermits?

 

[iemsparticus]

My initial reaction is that you have some hermits who are either dying or dead, and those are what the nassarius snails are going after. Nassarius snails are increadibly adept at sensing when there is something dead or dying, and, in my experinence, always make a beeline to it. They won’t care if the animal is dead, or just “mostly dead,” they will clean it up for you. I have never heard of or seen nassarius snails eating anything not dead or dying.

You sure you’ve got Nassarius Snails and not Whelks?

And yes, Hermits aren’t hyper active all the time.

 

[Kial]

the hermits that the snails went for are the most active ones which is weird. They seem to of backed off now and some hermits are cruising around the sandbed untouched.
Definitely nassarius, rise from the sand at the drop of food looking like zombies lol. Was like a film fighting them off the hermits!

 

[Jose Mayo]

Nassarius eat carrion and are peaceful, as has been said, Whelks are carnivorous and aggressive. They are quite similar in appearance, but in some points they are distinct ... in the photo below you can see the two, side by side and it can be verified that the proboscis of Nassarius is clearer and without spots, that of Whelk seems "tattooed ". Just by the shape of the shells, they hardly distinguish themselves:

( http://www.melevsreef.com/articles/whelk-versus-nassarius )

Regards

 

[Kial]

Can't get a picture of mine right now but mine look like these. Image I got from Google.

 

[Tahoe61]

Tongan Nassarius, peaceful. It's common when you add something new to the tank for other invert to go and eat any residual algae or goodies.

 

[newmonium]

My nassarius aye the first 2 additional smaller nassarius I put in the tank. The next time I got some, I added them strategically all over and big nassarius (Gary) stayed away. Then I fed the tank a few days later. Nassarius all came out. Gary nabbed another one.

 

[Kial]

Your snails are killing each other? Mine seem to tussle over food sometimes but end up fine