Evil Scarlet leg hermits

spkdtch

spkdtch

Member
i bought 2 fairly large hermits and they have done an excellent job of cleaning the sand but they have been very nasty. I now know they eat snails, or at least kill them to get their shells. So 5 turbo snails are dead and today i looked to see what one of them was eating as it was a bright white color. Turns out the prick ripped off my anemone crabs claws and one of its legs and was chowing down. The anemone crab was missing a leg when i bought it, but now it has 4 legs, no claws, just the little ones by its mouth with fans on them to scoop in food. Its still alive but hiding between rocks and i feel bad for it but it will make it.
My question is how evil are these things? i was planning on moving all my inverts into the larger tank within a week, but i dont want the hermits hurting my porcelain crab or decorator spider. The spider is very big, but slow, so im worried about it. What about my emeralds? my urchins? i was planning on getting some shrimp soon but not if these guys will kill everything. They even fight with eachother and play tag it seems, one will chase the other, then they switch and the other one chases
is this common with the big scarlet hermits? if so, in the fuge they go but they do such a good job of cleaning the sand that i want them in my DT, but if they are normally aggressive, ill live without them, id rather dirty sand than dead creatures
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
They don't live very long to even get big do they???
I have had hermits for 3 years and never had a problem, I have lots of snails. The only crab I have is a sally light foot, they don't bother it.
What other inverts do they bother, I need to know, I just ordered another 10 to replenish my CUC. I want t make sure not to get anything they are not compatible with. The books say reef safe and a good addition.
 
spkdtch

spkdtch

Member
so far they has killed all the snails and my anemone crab got away or they would have killed it, only thing they have access to, just an emerald crab who hides in caves and they havent noticed and a few small hermits
i was told it was a scarlet hermit but it doesnt look like one
it has small white/yellow spots all over it and hairs on its legs and claws
heres a pic, best i could get, you cant see the dots or hair, but they are very big, you can tell by the dead urchin skeleton right next to it
 
joe____17

joe____17

Member
Nope that is not a scarlet hermit. Mine are deep red with yellow eyes and are vegetarian. That looks like an anemone crab, without an anemone.
 
spkdtch

spkdtch

Member
thats what i thought, at another LFS they had anemone crabs in a tank for a mantis crab they had and it was the same as mine, just different shell(no anemone)
into the fuge they go, man im going to call and complain, that is the second bad piece of information they gave me, from the same purchase
 
joe____17

joe____17

Member
You might want to switch lfs. I go to a lfs frequently only because they occasionally have rare inverts. They mislabel stuff all the time though.
 
spkdtch

spkdtch

Member
thats why i went here, its a hit and miss place, fish are normally 20bucks over prices, inverts 10 under, but not all the time, normally i know when stuff is misslabeled(which over 50% of the stuff is)but im not an expert when it comes to crabs or snails
 
joe____17

joe____17

Member
Yeah the one i go to is like that too. Sometimes they up the price because of an inverts size, which i think is dumb.
 
spkdtch

spkdtch

Member
ya, at a similar place they wanted 50bucks for a "large" cleaner shrimp and 40 for a very small one, under an inch long, they over price everything
i did get a decorater spider fully grown for 10bucks at the place i got the hermits and snails, so its all hit and miss
 
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