Blue-leg micro hermits... Good or bad

[Larry Grenier]

I keep hearing conflicting stories on these guys.  Give me and (Lee I hope you're listening) your opinions please.

[Marty]

'Micro' blue legs are probably ok, but if they grow, you won't have snails for long.  Micro blue legs become macro blue legs.  Either get scarlets or go with all snails.  I have nassarius, ceriths, turbos, and astreas and things stay pretty clean.  I think I have a couple scarlet hermits, but I only rarely see them since they're nocturnal.

[Larry Grenier]

A few more opinions would be appreciated.

[quazi]

Hermit crabs knock things over.  I find that worms, peppermint shrimp, BCS, snails and emeral crabs work as well and do not cause the havoc that hermits cause.  Plus, hermits will eat snails, as Marty pointed out, so why bother?

 

Just my 2 cents.  I got rid of all my hermits: banished to the sump  :O

[Coral Hind]

If you want to keep hermit crabs I would stay with the Scarlets.  I have four and I have never seen them mess with anything.  I have seen my blue legged hermits grow into snail killers.  They would always fight with each other for their shells.  I think the scarlets grow alot slower than blue legged hermits do too.  If you do keep blue legs have lots of spare shells to reduce the fights.  When the blues grow up I would remove them before your snails become a new condo.

[Larry Grenier]

quazi; what's a BCS?

 

Folks; so I suppose micro or dwarf blue leg hermits are not a seperate species but merely small blue legs?  :(

[pez]

Yes Larry - just small blue legged hermits.   My experience has been the same as others - my snails started disappearing once I added some blue legs.  Coincidence?  0.02.

 

 

-T

[Coral Hind]

What's a BCS?  I would guess he is talking about a Banded Coral Shrimp.  Just a guess!

[quazi]

prevyet is the winner!