Hermit Crabs (feeding them)

S

sandy

Guest
Okay, a couple of my hermits are getting quite large. I don't have corals and they don't try to kill anything... the problem is that I was hand feeding them small chunks of formula one or two. Well, my levels were not good (ammonia & nitrite not zero... not .25, but not zero, Nitrate 60 (end of cycle)) -- I'm certain from overfeeding. So I stopped supplementing the hermits. Now they really do seem hungry.
Is there a problem with feeding the large hermit crabs? They seem to eat it all and there are other sifters to get what they don't eat? Maybe I'm just over-feeding in general. Does anyone here do this?
50gal long, 60+lbs LR, 65lbs dsb, Fluval 304, Skilter, Powerheads... 10 gal H20 change 1x /wk
1 Purple Tang, 2 Percula Clowns, 2 Yellow-Tail Damsels, 1 Yellow-Head Sleeper Goby, 1 Scooter Blenny, 7 Snails, 12 Hermits, 3 Pepperment Shrimp, 1 Cleaner Shrimp, 1 Serpent Star
 
karvis

karvis

Member
mine are small and just eat tablets(algae tablets) the food is only $1.99. i seen big hermits eat these with ease.
 
dugan

dugan

Member
I've never fed my hermits. I've always thought that if I feed them then they won't be hungry enough to eat the detritus that I got them to dispose of in the first place.
:)
Katie
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
You should stop hand feeding them. Is this a new tank? You said end of cycle?
How deep is your DSB? You should not be having any nitrates if you setup right. If you have media in that fluval that you aren't changing out weekly, then that is part of your prolbem. Canisters are nitrate factories.
 
S

sinner's girl

Guest
when we have shrimp (from the store) we'll feed them that. maybe once a week, maybe not for months...it depends...this group of crabs don't seem to enjoy the shrimp as much as the ones in the past have.
what i would do, is stop feeding them (or just feed them less at a time and less often), feed others a little less (if they don't eat anything scope it out with a net if possible). just until you reach zero.
when in doubt do a water change.
 
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