What is "normal behavior" .......

[Ryan22]

...........For my new scarlet reef hermit?

I bought 46lbs of live rock from paragon last friday(awsome stuff), and I got a scarlet reef hermit as a hitchhiker, along with two turbos. I took them and put them in my established 29 gal tank, rather than putting them in my 72gal with the rock during the cycle.
The turbos are cruising around the tank just fine, but the hermit is barely moving. He is is definatly doing something. I can see him moving a little under his shell. He has moved, maybe a couple inches every couple of hours. My girlfriend loves him, so I want to save him if he is in trouble. Is there something wrong with him? or is this normal?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[2poor2reef]

How did you acclimate him? There is nothing you can do for him other than acclimate him properly (too late now regardless) and to make sure he has food. Make sure your temp and salinity are in line with natural sea water. In general, scarlet reef hermits are significantly more hardy than snails so if your snails are alright the hermit probably is also. Unless it got injured in transit.

Out of curiosity, how common is it to get these scarlet reef hermits as hitchhikers. I've never heard of it before and was suspecting that even though they are call "reef" hermits that they were actually found elsewhere environment wise. Anyone know?

 

[Ryan22]

2poor,

I went to paragon's store and picked out my own rock, so maybe they just threw a few in the tank as an added bonus. I was pretty happy when I realized what he was. At first I just thought it was rubble on the bottom of the box.
I didn't really do anything to acclimate him, because he wasn't in any water, there was just about enough on the bottom of the box to keep him wet, but not submerged. I just plopped him it the tank. I figured I should get him back in the water, ASAP. It was about a hour drive. Maybe he was out of the water to long.

thanks,
Ryan

 

[2poor2reef]

O'kay, that makes a lot of sense. Many stores throw hermits and turbos into their live rock holding tanks to help control algae and then they hitch out on the rock. That's pretty cool. I understand what you mean about not being able to acclimate them when they are out of the water. These guys are pretty tough, I would bet that it's going to make it. Unless he got smashed pretty good when they were handling the rock. Good luck.