Is a Hermit Crab responsible for this??

[accurate]

I am missing a considerably large amount of purple coraline algae off of several of my rocks/
ive looked at night and after the lights have been off for a while or before they come on and havent seen a crab with the exception of the hermit. i know emeralds do but do hermits???

 

[bentrue]

i have not heard of hermits eating coraline. are the rocks fairly new to the tank? it may be a little die off.
a little off the subject...what LFS did you use when you lived in irondale? just curious as to what options i have in this area.

 

[marek]

Yes it could be the blue leg hermits, some people say they’ve seen them do that. I've for one completely eliminated hermits from all of my tanks, I believe that everyone will too, if one is long enough in the hobby. For one they don't really contain algae problems as a good amount of snails can, and TWO, they are SNAIL BUTCHERS... I've seen them kill few of my snails while I was looking. Why, the buggers...another thing, their numbers decline too fast IMO, not as fast as snails do and one has to keep adding them in. I said screw the little buggers and just have many snails of six diff sp now. And also, ONLY AND I SAY ONLY MITHRAX SCLULPTAS (emerald) CRABS... they are really great, I have them everywhere now, they bother nothing else but the algae...
Anyway, back to your coralline algae problem... my guess is it is the MITHRAX SCLULPTAS (emerald) crabs... my seem to like it, but don't completely eliminate it either. Another thing that has happened to me is that it seems that when there is not enough calcium, the newly grown coralline seems to disappear fast. KEEP THE CALC UP! Take care.

 

[bentrue]

marek,
what different snails do you have, and what do the different kinds specialize in? i to am in the process of ridding my tanks of the hermits. mainly because they steal all the food from my anemone when i try to feed it. i have had no problems from my red legs though

 

[sinner's girl]

our hermit have never messed with our purple coraline

 

[fender]

My hermits don't mess with anything. The only snails I have seem them attack were dead ones. And their population has been consistant for the past year. But I don't overstock my tank with hermits either - about 20 in 90g. They do a good job of keeping things clean and any food the fish miss, the hermits get. I like watching them, they are almost as interesting as the fish and corals.

 

[bigeyedfish]

What kind of crabs are they? I had some burgundy hermits in my tank and within a week they decimated the purple coraline on my 60 lbs of LR. They of course are now history and the LR seems to be doing better. I would refrain from hermits. I have three blue legs and thats it. One Emerald to take care of bubble algae but the rest are snails. No problems with them. After taking advice about getting hermits i have changed my opinion on them in a tank. They are all evil!!!!