New hermit crabs in tank.

[tmscott89]

So pretty new to the reef tank world and I just purchased clean up crew from liveaquaria. 25 blue leg hermits and 25 yellow tip hermits along with various snails. I placed them in the tank last night after getting them acclimated to the temperature. Unfortunately I had to leave for the rest of the evening and couldn’t keep an eye on them. Upon returning I noticed 8 or 9 shells had not moved and some even right side up and couldn’t see any legs in them. This morning same thing so I picked some of them up and still couldn’t see any legs in the shell. Checked all my levels before I placed them in the tank. Temp, ph, calcium, magnesium, etc is normal. My question is, were they eaten by other hermit crabs? Is it possible they are already molting in the sand? Thanks

 

[Big G]

Welcome to R2R! Keep an eye on those hermits. They are predators as well as cleaners. They'll flip over your good snails and eat them.

 

[ccombs]

How big is your tank? A lot of clean up crews sold as packs are oversized and a lot do not make it

 

[sbash]

Yup, that's pretty normal. Assuming you followed Live Aquarias acclimation procedure, I would contact them to see about their guarantee.

Otherwise, the crabs either died and subsequently were eaten, or they moved out of their shell into something else.

 

[tmscott89]

How big is your tank? A lot of clean up crews sold as packs are oversized and a lot do not make it

It’s a 90 gallon with 30 gallon Refugium. I didn’t buy a pack I just bought separate species. 50 hermit crabs and 25 snails in all to be placed between the two.

 

[ccombs]

It’s a 90 gallon with 30 gallon Refugium. I didn’t buy a pack I just bought separate species. 50 hermit crabs and 25 snails in all to be placed between the two.

Gotcha! Sorry, it sounded like a LA pack which tends to overdo it.

 

[tmscott89]

Yup, that's pretty normal. Assuming you followed Live Aquarias acclimation procedure, I would contact them to see about their guarantee.

Otherwise, the shrimps either died and subsequently were eaten, or they moved out of their shell into something else.

Well I wouldn’t be alarmed about other shells except for the fact I had very few shells in the tank that were empty. Certainly not 10 empty shells to compensate for all of them.

 

[tmscott89]

Yeah

Gotcha! Sorry, it sounded like a LA pack which tends to overdo it.

I looked into packs and it sounded like way too many. So I decided to buy smaller amount. I haven’t counted all the snails but they seem fine. And the blue leg crabs are so small that having trouble finding them. Just surprising that the biggest crabs in the tank would be the first to go.