I just saw a really disturbing thing....

tirtza

tirtza

Member
As I understand it, really big hermit crabs sometimes go after snails. This afternoon I saw the complete opposite. I'm not sure if the crab was dead or just molting but when I took a look at the aquarium I saw one of my big Scarlett hermit crabs out of his shell and completely covered by nassarius snails. The Nass snails were coming out of the sand (like zombies) and were descending upon the crab. I have no idea if the crab was dead or not and if my little clean up crew was just doing it's job. It was still really creepy to see this poor little crab being eaten (maybe alive?) by a hoard of snails. How long are hermit crabs supposed to live? This was a pretty big one so I'm guessing it wasn't very young....
 
mr. limpid

mr. limpid

Active Member
It was dead those snails do not attack hermits, a health hermit can defend itself. All hermits, doesn't have to be big will kill snails, to get there shells.
 
snakeblitz33

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
The hermit was dead. The nass snails sensed meat in the water and went after some food, doing their jobs.
Ah, just saw your post, limpid. +1
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Dead or it was a molt. Have you seen the large shell it was in? Does it still have a crab in it?
 
tirtza

tirtza

Member
Yep, I've seen the shell and it's empty. It was a really large scarlet hermit crab, much bigger than any scarlet hermit I've seen in any LFS yet. I bought 3 Scarlett hermit crabs a couple of weeks after I first set up my aquarium (so they've been in there for close to 6 months). They were all three HUGE! Much bigger than my fully grown Mexican Turbo Snail. There's a photo of one of them below (I wish I something in the near the crab so that you can have an idea of how big it actually is). One died last week, and another one died around a month ago. So I only have one left. I'm guessing that the two that had died probably just lived out their normal life span and died of old age. What do you think? I'd like to add a couple more hermit crabs, but I haven't seen any as big as those I had. I'm nervous about adding a couple of small ones with that one big one in there. Will the one big one potentially kill any small ones that are added?
 
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