Hungry Hermit

sunsun

sunsun

New Member
Help!
I was having problems with a Evil Sallylight foot.
It was pulling out Scarlet hermit and eating them!
so I remove him in a quantitine tank.
Now my main concern is that my Scarlet hermit
seem like it's "starving". Before I add my inhabitants, there was many diatom(hair algae?) growing and some "bubble" algae at the beginning. Now it's not much green stuff there...because they Eat them ALL!
Is it because lack of lighting?
I have a 20W 50/50(Actinic & day light) on a
20Lgal tank. Water condition checks out perfect.
(20lb of live rock with coralline growing on rocks)
I notice my scarlet reef is still dying at a rate of 1per week. It was the Big ones that die at the beginning, now I just
found another scarlet hermit outside of it's shell..
this one is a tiny one.
Other inhabitant of the tank is doing great.
I have about 10 scarlet hermit, 8 blue leg hermit , 3 peppermint shrimp & I coral band shrimp.
All shrimps have molt at least once.
Oh, and 4 Green Chromis doing great..
My own conclusion is that there is not much algae
for them to eat. Any sugguestion?
Thanks
 
clayton

clayton

Member
Hermit crabs should eat pretty much anything, including many of those expensive items that you do not want them to. You can supliment algae with lettuce weighted down. Offer various meat foods but dont offer too much. Make sure that you supply the hermits with a large number of empty shells that they can swap around as they grow.
 
monkey

monkey

New Member
I have to feed my crabs and shrimp food because I fave no fish thanks to wipe out. But I feed them some shrimp pellets that sink to the bottom. All the crabs (inc. hermits)and shrimp go get the food the secound I put it in the tank. I do not know how thay know when I drop the food in but thay know. It is fun to watch them race off the rocks to the food.
 
dennish

dennish

Member

Originally posted by SunSun:
Help!
I just found another scarlet hermit outside of it's shell...
I have three hermits. Two red and one Blue legged. Yesterday I found the "bodies" of one of the reds and the blue in the tank. I fished them out, and the empty shell of the red one, then noticed that the Blue legged one walking away in his shell!! but I had his "body" in my hand!!! Well I am sure you have figured out by now what I did. They didn't die- they molted! I then noticed the "empty" shell on the top of the tank- it had some red legs poking out!
So, the moral of the story is they may not have died- they may have just outgrown thier exoskeletons! I had the same thing happen to my fiddler crab in my brackish tank- but that was much more obvious that it was just an empty "shell". The hermits exoskeletons look just like dead bodies. I put them on a paper plate in the freezer until I can get the digital camera home to photograph them. I'll try to do so tonight. If you want to see a copy, just email me privately (check my user profile for email address). I've read that, at least with fiddler crabs, that they are very healthy and doing well if they are molting.
Since it sounds like you have too many to keep track of, it would be hard to tell if they died or molted. Hopefully the later.
-Dennis
 
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