my crabs are eating my coral

[fishswim]

I don't know what kind of hermit crabs I have, but they have started eating my goniopora coral. WHat is up with this? The whole bottom has been eaten away. I need some comments, suggestions, something to help me out.

 

[adrian]

Sorry about your coral Ditch the crabs, what color are their legs?

 

[fishswim]

Their legs are brownish. I thought that most hermit crabs were reef safe.

 

[adrian]

Quite the contrary, most hermits are not reef safe, especially the ones that get larger than about and inch and a half. The only hermits I would suggest are red legs, and even then I would not go overboard with them, mabey two per ten gallons.

 

[nm reef]

But.....before you convict the hermits...are you certain that the goniopora wasn't on its way out already...they do not have a good survival record...and if they were in decline then the crabs were doing excatly what we pay them to do.....clean-up...a lot of times when people say....."my crabs ate this..or my crabs ate that"...I suspect that the victim was already on its way out and the crabs were actually just going to work..........and I am sorry to hear about the decline in your goniopora

 

[jimi]

I would not wait to ditch the crabs. The only ones considered reef safe are the scarlet hermits and even they are not 100%

 

[adrian]

NM reef has a point...