Dirty Little Hermits

[sen5241b]

I recently put three Cerith snails in my tank. After a few days I see little blue hermit crab legs coming of one of the Cerith shells and then a layer of slime on the surface water. I clear the slime out a few days later I see little blue legs coming out of another Cerith and more surface slime and then a third time! BTW, in my 20G the Ceriths lay eggs weekly. My question: are hermits a necessity?

[Ryan S]

My question: are hermits a necessity?

 

Absolutely not.

[smallreef]

Hermits in that small of a tank are murderous son of a guns...lol

being that they pick off snails and eat leftovers if you dont have enough leftovers it makes their shell raid games easier...

[treesprite]

Ceriths are the #1 favorite type of shell for hermits, I'm sure. Ever notice how most hermits are sold in cerith shells?

 

I got rid of all my hermits a long time ago, but last week put 3 in because I keep overfeeding my tank.

 

If you get rid of the hermits, put a shrimp in the tank if you don't already have one, because you need something to eat little bits of uneaten fish food.

[Fishie]

i stopped keeping hermits because i thought ceriths would sift the sand and keep things clean...they do a good job with the sand and decent with the glass and rock...but dont consume certain types of nuisance algae

 

hermits eat more gunk than ceriths...think of them as hyenas of the reefland....hermits eat everything when hungry

 

i think the drawback of hermits is ofcourse eating other snails and they can poke corals around and annoy them when walking around to get from a to b.

 

turbos are also cool since they eat everything too (mexican turbos...not the astrae which are also sold as turbos)

[treesprite]

If you want snails that sift sand, you need to get nassarius snails. There are some that are small, and then Tonga nassarius which are much larger. These snails bury themselves in the sand when not out hunting for food, which helps protect them from predators (like hermit crabs).

[flooddc]

I don't think they are that bad. Maybe the snails died and the hermies made a new home out of it. I have several types of hermit in my tank. Kinda funny to watch them during feeding time. Sometime they just dived or fumbled down the LR just to make a quick way down to the sand bed.

[zygote2k]

In my own tank, I placed 500 tiny hermits and they ate every single bit of detritus, cyano, algae, and uneaten food. They are the best scouring crew around. If they don't have enough food, they eat snails.

[treesprite]

They always had enough food in my tank, and they always killed snails in my tank. I don't believe they only kill them for food. Plenty of times I've seen hermits picking at living snails and not putting what they pick out in their mouths to eat.