No love for hermits?

[Thrawn]

I'm hopefully going to be setting up my first "big" (90 gallons) tank, so I've been reading up on all of Lee's threads, trying to learn as much as I can. One thing that really stood out to me, he stated in his FOWLER startup thread that you should not use hermit crabs. I've heard a lot of people go back and forth on whether or not hermit crabs should be kept in an aquarium. I know that they can be bullies towards snails but I always thought that if they were small (harmless little blue-legs?), they would be fine. I was just curious to see what everybody else's take on it was because I've always thought they're fascinating little creatures, always kept them in my nano, and would like to keep them in the 90 as well.

Thanks guys!

 

[rainydave]

I loved my hermits until the day I saw a red-legged devil tearing apart my new Acan frag. He took a quick trip to the sump. I haven't had any hermits in my DT since.

 

[mcoomer]

I just put 40 more blue legs in my 180 yesterday. They work for me.

Mike

 

[colin779]

I've never had any bad luck with hermits. I keep the small blue leg guys, and used to have some scarlet red legs. They are good scavengers and are entertaining to watch in my opinion. I also have a 90, pretty sure i only have 10 or 15 in there though.

 

[Paul B]

This pair was in my reef for 13 years until they recently died, probably of old age. I never had a problem with them and find them facinating. They may kill snails, so keep hermits and no snails. There smarter anyway. Mine used to text me when they were hungry.

 

[Thrawn]

Thanks for the info guys, I'll probably keep hermits and not snails. I find them to be way more fascinating.

 

[akunochi]

Snails will help with verious algaes that the hermits may not however....

 

[Scampy]

I'm convinced my blue legs hunted down snails just for fun.

 

[N1Husker]

I've got 4 red legged, 1 blue legged,1 scarlet, 2 zebras, 1 emerald, and 2 snails. They just do their own thing and once in a while crawl over each other in route to their destination. They are fun to watch. I feed the emerald a shrimp pellet once in a while with a turkey baster and he grabs on to the tube trying to get the pellet out. He sees that baster tube and he knows it is chow time. I've had all of them for 5 months now and no problems, they are all still living and crawl all over the tank.

 

[Krish]

I think once your tank has empty shells for them to move into as they grow, they wouldn't be much of a problem (blue-legged hermits). When you see them fighting and tearing apart a snail, sometimes they are looking for a bigger shell to move into. They will even do this among one another. I've had a few blue-legged hermit crabs at one point and never had a problem with them. Eventually though, I just got rid of all of my clean-up crews altogether after removing the sand from my tanks.

 

[stalefish]

I've never had too much problem with hermits other than they're clumsy. I think the biggest problem is overstocking - I've seen some literature/adverts that "recommend" something like 1 or 2 hermits per gallon which I think is beyond crazy, but I don't see much wrong with just a few. They do kill some snails, but if you've got enough empty shells of various sizes that should keep it relatively under control.

-Don

 

[dawgwe1]

I have had four blue legged hermits with 10 snails since December 2010 and all are still kicking..... I put a few extra shells in the tank at the same time. Two of the hermits have left their original shells and moved into the empty ones I put in the tank..... I agree that they will go after a snail to get its shell if there is no other option for them...

 

[Thrawn]

Thanks for the info guys! I'll probably keep a small amount of blue legs and make sure they have some extra shells.