Invert questions?

[daj0424]

Are my crabs supposed to eat my snails? I ust purchased 10 Nass sails, 5 net snails, 8 blue leg hermits, 1 emerald crab, and 1 sand swifter star.
I thought that this would be a good start to a clean up crew for my 55g FOWLR tank. I just put in a new sand bed and want to make sure it stays clean.
Over the weekend I have noticed that my crabs are eating some of my snails. Do they just attack these or are they eating them because they are already dead?
One last question, what is the point of an emerald crab. Do they eat alge or are they just cool to watch? Mine just hides all day and is quite boring for $10.
Thanks for all your opinions.

 

[razoreqx]

Originally Posted by daj0424
Are my crabs supposed to eat my snails? I ust purchased 10 Nass sails, 5 net snails, 8 blue leg hermits, 1 emerald crab, and 1 sand swifter star.
I thought that this would be a good start to a clean up crew for my 55g FOWLR tank. I just put in a new sand bed and want to make sure it stays clean.
Over the weekend I have noticed that my crabs are eating some of my snails. Do they just attack these or are they eating them because they are already dead?
One last question, what is the point of an emerald crab. Do they eat alge or are they just cool to watch? Mine just hides all day and is quite boring for $10.
Thanks for all your opinions.

Next time your in your LFS buy some empty shells from their bone yard. If crabs cant find shells as they grow larger, yes will kill your snails for their shells.
Some Emerald crabs will eat bubble alge. As far as cool to watch? I have seven of them in my tank and I might catch one milling about once per month

 

[jdragunas]

1. Hermit crabs generally only eat snails in order to take over their shells. You should always have a few empty shells in the tank, so when the crabs grow out of theirs, they can take a bigger one. This should save your snails from being eaten most of the time. Sometimes you'll come across a hermie that just likes to eat snails...
2. Emerald crabs eat bubble aglae, which can be a nuisance. Keep your eye on him, though, as some can be aggressive toward fish and other inverts.

 

[farmboy]

THey are referred to as "oportunistic" feeders of snails and fish(depends on the crab species). I have some that have attacked healthy-seeming snails. For the most part, they eat algae and detritus.
When we acclimated our first cleaner crew, we did it all in the same 10 gallon tank. BAD move! It was like a free for all. :scared: I think we may have lost one snail. But it looked like we were going to loose them all! Crabs were all over them. THey must have thougt with only the glass bottom in the 10, they were welcome to the sail dinner. Quickly seperated-chalked up to experience (Lack there of).

 

[yimmy]

My crabs ate one of my snails. The shell was way to big for them and you could fit 15hermits in there...they just killed him for no reason, so i just left the shell in there so the whoever is biggest will pop in

 

[jsb]

I stay away from the blue hermits. I've heard they tend to do that more than the red hermits. I've never seen my reds do that. BUT I've always kept enough shells in the tank as well, so who knows.