Life Without Crabs
- Thread starter kynekke
- Start date
kynekke
Member
I have 2 hermit crabs.. Jean Claude beat up Ahnold and got banished to the sump.... now Ahnold is beating up my other crabs (both zebra hermits and red legged). I haaate crabs! Oh, I did buy some epoxy today to try to stabilize the corals but I'm a dork and don't know how to use it.. hopefully when my husband gets home he'll know.
sh00tist
Member
be careful what sort of epoxy you are using. I use loctite superglue gel,sets up very quickly try not to get it on the corals themselves just the rocks. The crabs arent to blame they are simply doing their job. In the wild the corals would be firmly attached to the rock and there wouldnt be any problem. To solve this issue,everytime you buy a new smaller coral/frag use the superglue gel to glue it onto a larger piece of rock than it came on,rock to rock,not coral to rock. I have a bunch of rubble down in my sump I use pieces of. Dont glue the rock to the rockwork in your tank they are a lot more difficult to move around when you get new additions. I drill a small hole in the bottom of the rock Im getting ready to glue my frag to. Then take a 2-3 inch piece of small non-flexible airline tube,superglue it into the hole,then glue the frag to the rock. Then you can stick the tube into a hole in your rockwork and be able to move it on a whim. It sounds complicated but once you have done it its very simple and you will want to do it everytime.
stanlalee
Active Member
Originally Posted by Kynekke
Is it possible to have a decently clean tank without crabs?
are you kidding me for everything hermit crabs do there is a snail that does it better. I think if it wasn't for the fact crabs in general are cooler more interesting than snails they wouldn't be so popular. Large (super tongon, fancy or whatever) and small vibex nassarius snails scavenge and stir up the sand better. astrea,mexican turbo's, cerith well just about all doa better job on algae and diatoms as do fighting conches. heck I think cleaner shrimp do a better and faster job than hermits.
now sallylightfoots are about as good as they come when it comes to scavenging being lightning fast and greedy BUT mine started eating zoanthid like candy immediately after adding them and when bigger they can pose a threat to other livestock.. emerald/mitrax are worthless except for bubble algae which shouldn't ever be a big problem in a well kept tank and they are definate threat to any fish large and dumb enough to be taken down (and to each other too).
Is it possible to have a decently clean tank without crabs?
are you kidding me for everything hermit crabs do there is a snail that does it better. I think if it wasn't for the fact crabs in general are cooler more interesting than snails they wouldn't be so popular. Large (super tongon, fancy or whatever) and small vibex nassarius snails scavenge and stir up the sand better. astrea,mexican turbo's, cerith well just about all doa better job on algae and diatoms as do fighting conches. heck I think cleaner shrimp do a better and faster job than hermits.
now sallylightfoots are about as good as they come when it comes to scavenging being lightning fast and greedy BUT mine started eating zoanthid like candy immediately after adding them and when bigger they can pose a threat to other livestock.. emerald/mitrax are worthless except for bubble algae which shouldn't ever be a big problem in a well kept tank and they are definate threat to any fish large and dumb enough to be taken down (and to each other too).
