More hermit crab questions...

[lennyd4]

I have a 65 g FOWLR . I purchased 6 hermit crabs on sunday, I only see 3 now, not sure if the other ones died or just under rocks and such. Anyway, I was wondering how many I can have this soon (1 month old tank). I love watching these little guys (dwarf blue legged). Also, will these small hermits bother a Cleaner Shrimp at all ?

 

[Paul B]

The crabs will not bother a cleaner shrimp. You can put a lot of them in there if you want to feed them every day. (and they are small) They will not find any food in such a new tank. You can feed sinking pellets or flakes to the hermits but don't go crazy, you don't have much bacteria in there yet.
The other crabs may have died because hermits don't hide under rocks. They may go there looking for food but they don't hide.

 

[lennyd4]

What would be the reason that the other ones died? The others seem to be fine ?

 

[Skipper@NAR]

How did you acclimate them?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[_Alex_]

They may be molting. I have noticed shortly after adding new hermits of any kind they will molt. They need calcium, iodide and other trace elements to molt successfully. Same for you shrimp. Make sure your calcium is 380-450 and magnesium and dkh are good. Everything else should come from using a quality salt.

 

[Rockadile]

I guess one question is have you seen empty shells in your tank? If so one thing that may of and probably happened is hermits fight a lot, they fight for each others shells. I wouldnt get too carried away with adding them just. yet, some fish people put in their fowlr tanks eat crustaceans

 

[lennyd4]

I drip acclimated them for about an hour and a half. Also, say I buy test kits for calcium and magnesium, or even alk, how to I raise each perameter ?

I wasn't away that they needed that, I thought that was more for corals but I understand they are both inverts so it is making sense to me now. But before I buy my cleaner shrimp I want to know what I have to do to keep him alive and healthy.

Also, I did notice that one of the hermits ditched his shell to go into one of the white shells that were in my "live sand", but I have not seen him for a few days now atleast.

 

[straydog]

Iodine is the biggest factor that I have found to cause a molt in my tank. A change in water such as acclimation or a water change may trigger this. They will hide while molting while there new exoskeleton hardens. During this process they are most vulnerable, so they would be easily killed by another more aggressive crab. I have mixed emotions on cleaner shrimp, they are nice to watch but not when they are digging food out of a nice acan while its trying to digest its food.

 

[lennyd4]

well I have a FOWLR so corals aren't really a concern to me right now. When do you think I add iodine into the tank ?

 

[Rockadile]

iodine evaporates after 3 days and in my 90 I will ad 1 cap full between my weekly water changes. Lenny to be perfectly honest, I would not mess with it till you are a little more experienced, over dosing is a killer for one and for 2 as long as you do regular water changes everything will be just fine, especially since you are doing a fowlr tank it is not a critical component.

 

[Alistar]

They're probably hiding, with or without their shell {molting}... I am sure a lot of reefers here would attest to things disappearing for short to great lengths of time, then suddenly reappearing...

 

[lennyd4]

Do you think I should hold off on getting the shrimp then?

 

[nixer]

i dont see a need to wait. cleaner shrimp tend to eat more fish food than anything. do you have any kind of snails?

 

[_Alex_]

I would get a dkh and calcium test kit at the least. It may be fowlr. It they still need decent water quality. That and if your going to have inverts you need to know what your calcium is at, otherwise they will die trying to molt.

 

[lennyd4]

I have 2a nassarius snails right now and im waiting for more algae growth for other kinds of snails. If my calcium and or dkh were off. How would you suggest leveling it out

 

[boehm742]

Wouldnt worry about it. My hermits fine spaces in rocks and nooks and crannies i didnt even know were in the tank.

 

[Rockadile]

I have 2a nassarius snails right now and im waiting for more algae growth for other kinds of snails. If my calcium and or dkh were off. How would you suggest leveling it out

first thing would be too post your results of your water tests. this would give us a far better idea of what you can do or should do to get things in the right direction.

 

[lennyd4]

I picked up Salifert test kits today so my tests are.

Mag- 990
Calc- 200
Alk - 5.1 DKH

I recognize that these are low so please how do I raise them??!

 

[Rockadile]

First thing I would do is take a sample to your lfs and confirm those results. If they are confirmed I would do a significant water change maybe 30 gals using quality salt and then retest. I find it hard to belive your params are that low considering it is a fowlr tank. Are you buffering your top off water with anything? such as reef builder or kalkwasser?

 

[lennyd4]

No, my top off water is just ro/di water, i'm not buffering it with anything.