whos killing my snails?

[mushrommy]

I just bought some Trochus snails. today I woke up to a dead one. My suspects are some hermit crabs. specifically my dwarf blue-leg hermit crabs. I also have scarlet hermit crabs but I thought they were docile near snails. Also, they won't be able to fit inside the shell because they are too big. So here's my interpretation of what happened, the dwarf blue-leg hermit crabs ganged up on the snail in murdered it for the shell. But they were so rude and left it!
I need to see who goes to hermit crab jail faced under the snail court.
Thank's!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

hermits take the blame for a lot of things but usually they just doing there job.

how many snails did you buy? Its not uncommon to lose one snail of the bunch, sometimes they don't acclimate well to new tanks. What is your clean up crew and tank age? Its a common to overestimate how many snails/crabs are needed and then they go hungry.

Just saying, in the snail court, your evidence seems circumstantial

 

[mushrommy]

hermits take the blame for a lot of things but usually they just doing there job.

how many snails did you buy? Its not uncommon to lose one snail of the bunch, sometimes they don't acclimate well to new tanks. What is your clean up crew and tank age? Its a common to overestimate how many snails/crabs are needed and then they go hungry.

Just saying, in the snail court, your evidence seems circumstantial

I bought five yesterday. I don't usually feed the hermits, that may be the reason. A snail went past one of the scarlet hermit crabs and it did nothing to the snail. I'll make sure to feed them. I slowly acclimated them for an hour. It may be an inefficient way of doing it. Thank's for the help. I love my hermit crabs!
The snail judges shall have some mercy.

 

[exnisstech]

I'm not fond of hermits as they kill my cerith snails but don't bother my trochus. The trochus kill themselves by climbing out of the tank and getting carried away by one of my dogs.
EDIT : I temp acclimate snails then drop them in the tank per the recommendation of John at reef cleaners. If I buy a lot I like to place them in an acclimation box but just to watch for movement so I'm not putting in dead ones or empty shells.

 

[mushrommy]

I'm not fond of hermits as they kill my cerith snails but don't bother my trochus. The trochus kill themselves by climbing out of the tank and getting carried away by one of my dogs.

ok, so it's not them.
It might have died and the hermit crabs were just doing their job. This is some info I never knew. I heard they fling hermit crabs.
The evidence is leaning toward the hermit crab's innocence.
Thank's a lot.

 

[Makara23]

It's true that the hermit might be cleaning up a snail already dead. But I have personally witnessed one of my blue leg hermits murder a perfectly alive snail. It tried to pick at the snail and climb in to rip it up more. I stopped it, snail got away, but obviously I can't babysit the whole day. The next day, that snail was eaten up

Any crabs/hermits, like shrimps, are good citizens... until they're not.

 

[woodyarmadillo]

I recently got rid of my hermits. I bought some Trochus snails and the 1st morning found a dead one being eaten by a hermit and then the next morning another hermit eating a newly dead Trochus. I found a lot of snail shells in my aquarium and believe my blue legs have been killing snails for awhile even though I feed heavy and provided a lot of empty shells. They did good on hair algae but it’s not worth it to me.

I also wanted to add that I am working with a 14gallon nano and a few dead snails actually seems to have encouraged my ammonia to spike enough to give my clowns ammonia poisoning. I’m rigorous about testing and WC and one day my clowns just started breathing heavy, pulled out dead snails, realized my ammonia was high. Did a couple big water changes. Have been monitoring and keeping everything stable for 2 weeks now, clowns are just now starting to eat again. Not worth it for me.

 

[woodyarmadillo]

Zz

 

[kevgib67]

I have dwarf blue and red legged hermit crabs in with cerith, nassarius and trochus snails with out any snail massacres. I do have a lot of empty shells on the sand that I got from my lfs. I know the Trochus shells would be to big for the dwarf hermits. I haven’t had to replace any cerith snails in 17 months. Maybe the dwarfs are the way to go.

 

[mushrommy]

Ok, if I dare see another dead snail to hermit crab jail the blue legs go!

 

[Makara23]

I have dwarf blue and red legged hermit crabs in with cerith, nassarius and trochus snails with out any snail massacres. I do have a lot of empty shells on the sand that I got from my lfs. I know the Trochus shells would be to big for the dwarf hermits. I haven’t had to replace any cerith snails in 17 months. Maybe the dwarfs are the way to go.

How do you know the hermits don't kill your snails? It's hard to account for all snails at any point in time, unless you can see ALL of them. And being mixed in with empty shells and hermits makes it that much harder.

 

[kevgib67]

How do you know the hermits don't kill your snails? It's hard to account for all snails at any point in time, unless you can see ALL of them. And being mixed in with empty shells and hermits makes it that much harder.

I have a 32g tank only added 4 ceriths, 6 trochus and 4 nassarius. In small tank that had them added in early 2022, I see multiple at a time, your right not everyone of them except the nassarius snails that come out of the sand like a bat out of hell when food is introduced to the tank, I see all four of them. I haven’t purchased any replacements and ca see multiple at any given time. The only snail deaths I’ve had was I added a few bumblebee snails to combat vermatid snails. And saw one then two empty shells. I then caught a whelk snail in the act with a third one. The whelk is in snail heaven.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I just bought some Trochus snails. today I woke up to a dead one. My suspects are some hermit crabs. specifically my dwarf blue-leg hermit crabs. I also have scarlet hermit crabs but I thought they were docile near snails. Also, they won't be able to fit inside the shell because they are too big. So here's my interpretation of what happened, the dwarf blue-leg hermit crabs ganged up on the snail in murdered it for the shell. But they were so rude and left it!
I need to see who goes to hermit crab jail faced under the snail court.
Thank's!

Were they acclimated and how and how long?
They need good acclimation

 

[mushrommy]

Were they acclimated and how and how long?
They need good acclimation

I didn't have a air line tube so I slow acclimated them for 1 hour.

 

[mushrommy]

No other snail has been touched and the hermies just ignore them. I think I didn't acclimate them correctly and one died after.