Blue-legged Hermits

[clschaefer23]

I have a question and I was wondering if someone could help. I have a 44 gl tank with about 10 hermit crabs. They are all realitively small and very efficient. I noticed that a couple had died and began to wonder. Can the hermits out-grow their shell and what happens? I have a crushed coral floor that has various shells in it. They are pretty small however. Do I buy some bigger shells and put them in my tank to avoid further deaths?

 

[nacl-h2o]

You should get one of those shell packs for hermits. Hermits are well known for attacking snails and other hermits to aquire new shells when they can't find one to fit their increasing size. Are you sure their dead and its not just shedings your seeing?

 

[fishhooked]

In my tank I saw what I thought was a dead hermit one morning, but later that day all were present and accounted for. It turned out to be a shedding.
The LFS here gave me some snail shells out of one of their display tanks for the hermits for free.

 

[clschaefer23]

Pretty sure it's dead but I guess I will have to check that. So basically buy some shells from your local fish store? I will check into that-thanks.