hermit crabs

[bbac504]

i was wondering before i bought them is it a special kind of hermit crab that i buy for a salt water tank or are all of them the same like the ones u see out the water

 

[fishfreak1242]

I would stick to buying ones that you would see at your LFS that are in saltwater and not risk it.

 

[oceansidefish]

Land hermits are not the same.

 

[ophiura]

Land hermits, sold at beach stores with pretty painted shells will die in saltwater tanks. Good you asked

 

[aqua_scaping]

but one thing to remember when buying hermits (if you are getting a reef tank) stay away from the ZEBRA HERMITS they cause more havoc then they are worth....just my opinion

 

[crabsrkewl]

I think he meant hermits from the beach like one's from his/her local beach in which case see if you can ID here.

 

[nordy]

Originally Posted by bbac504
http:///forum/post/2638882
i was wondering before i bought them is it a special kind of hermit crab that i buy for a salt water tank or are all of them the same like the ones u see out the water
Also, make sure you get plenty of snails for them to snack on

Seriously theough, they don't need snails but they do love to eat them.

 

[ophiura]

In some respects they do need snails

since they use them as homes...after they uh evict the original owners. So have snails - or at least snail shells.

 

[bbac504]

so would my turbo snails get eattin i have about 3 of them in there and planned on buying about 5 hermit crabs

 

[dfabrikant]

some LFS have lots of different saltwater hermit crabs, I like the brown legged because they are so active, they are always busy in my tank plus they are bigger then the blue legged so I can find them real well, the good thing is they can use the same shells as the land crabs, so I go to stores with land crabs and find bunches of shells and my brown legged switch homes all the time, everytime I drop a new shell in the go check it out! so make sure you have plenty of homes for them, they will be happy...and if you dont have enough for them to eat yet, mine love when I give them a freeze dried krill they hold on to it with there dear life, or strips of dried seaweed..

 

[lion_crazz]

The turbo snails will eventually get eaten by the snails if there are no large shells.
The first thing I would buy for your tank is not hermit crabs but more live rock.
Plus, I would recommend getting that sailfin tang into a larger tank because tangs need a lot of room to swim and be comfortable. The nanocube will not cut it for much longer.

 

[zeezeez]

You definitely need more live rock, or your snails and hermit won't have anything to clean. Although most people disagree, I love the black and white striped hermit crabs. My dad has a 300 gallon mixed reef tank and has a very large hermit of the kind I like. It's not violent or anything, and never hurts anything in the tank.