BAD blue Legged Hermits?

[Great Reefer]

I heard some where that Blue legged Hermits are bad. Becayse they eat coraline algae. Is this true I would really like some clarification on this thanx.

 

[davelin315]

Blue legs are more aggressive than other "reef safe" hermit crabs. They will eat your snails and possibly some corals polyps as well. Don't know about eating coralline algae, but a lot of stuff including snails will eat that, but it'll always grow back.

[ September 17, 2001: Message edited by: davelin315 ]

 

[Grandczar]

Think of them as terrorist's trying to infiltrate your reef. They try to disquise themselves as nice little snails. While they inflict terror among your inhabitants.
Only good hermit is a dead one!
I am a snail sympathiser... sorry!
I will smoke all the hermits out of there snail shells in my reef!

 

[Mouse]

I have recently given up on hermit crabs, i much prefer to use Sally lightfoots instead. They seem to be much more industreous than any of the hermets and dont need so many damn shells to live in.

The blue leggs are IMO useless, all they do is kill stuff and rip stuff up and throw it into the water. And the reds are ok but ive never managed to keep them alive for any significant ammount of time, longer than 6 months. At any rate they were not missed. I have however kept blue leggs alive without any problems, none that i have inflicted anyway. But they do a good job of killing each other.

I use the following detrevores/clean up crew.

Sally lightfoot
Serpent stars
Turbo snails
Algie blenny
Edible cuke

The following i would like to try on my larger system when its set up

Sally lightfoots
Serpent stars
Turbo Snails
Cerith Snails
Queen Conch
Edible cuke
Tiger tail
Algie blenny

The following i have tried but all they have succeeded in doing is bringing me to tears. I would never use them again.

Emerald Crab "of destruction"
ate various polops ,my beutifull goinopora, and some snails. And i have never seen it once eat valona, and yet it is a proper Emerald Crab he has the little red bits.

Blue legged "crabs of death"
Ate themselfes, the red legs and a couple of snails. Also i think they may have been partly responsible for the propagation of Greeh Hair Algie to other parts of my reef.

Red leggs
Just sat there really, could have been a bad batch for shipment. They allways just end up in a big heap in the corner of the tank.

I would also add Tangs are very good cleaners, but they do love the little red bits of macro you get an i really like red.

There you go, in all the information i have just passed on to you would have saved me in excess of £150 if i include all of the damage and time to correct it. Its only a 25 gallon tank, so it could have been very dangerous. Ive got this small tank as a training tank...

 

[XXX]

IME agree about blue legs. IME the scarlets are very peaceful and useful.

 

[monkeyboy]

I'm not a big fan of blue leggers either but i am a hermit crab advocate. The scarlet's are much more snail friendly but any hermit will rip a healthy snail out of it's shell. They will eat some coralline but they're not going to strip the whole tank of it! If you want to keep a reef w/out hermits you can use nassarius snails. Shimek is wild about them, check the reefs.org library, he has an article about them.

 

[Anonymous]

My scarlets never hurt my snails - I've seen them clean algae off a snails shel and then let the snail go about his business. Blue legs on the other hand - murderers. Just becareful about the scarlets - there are red hermits and scarlets. Reds are supposed to be more aggresive too. Just give the scarlets plenty of grow out shells.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't like crabs in general fro a reef tank...they are either harmful to fish/corals, or they're clumsy, knocking things over and causing corals to close up. I didn't spend $2k on my reef to have stupid crabs making it look like there's just rock in there. I currently have no crabs in my reef. Load up on snails instead...

Peace,

Chip

 

[jamesw]

Hermit crabs are omnivores meaning they will eat whatever they can get their little claws on. NOT a good critter for a reef aquarium, IMO.

HTH
James Wiseman

 

[gka]

My experience is in line with Mouse. If you are just looking for pure entertainment then get some hermits. Snails are not much to look at but they should be foundation of any clean-up crew. My hermits are very active and the kids love them. The blue legs are more active than the red but they are more aggressive. Get a few red legs and see what you think. Also IMO the emerald crabs do nothing in my tank other than scrape off the coraline algae and knock things over.

 

[Bob Gardner]

I have always had blue legs in my reef tank and they co-exist with snails. They don't eat corals or coraline algae. They do eat any detrius that they can find and also have cleaned out any sign of green algae. If you provide an assortment of shells in the tank they will not bother the snails. Some of the crabs that I have are several years old unless they are breeding which I think is unlikely.
Bob

 

[Toadally1]

Speaking of crabs, I just caught one today that hitched in on a peice of rock. he has been terrorizing the tank for the last few nights. Last night he knocked over a sps that landed into a lobophylia and it burned about half of the coral.
I got lucky and saw him picking at a frag from within a hole. He really messed up by letting me see him.

 

[danmhippo]

In my tanks, NO CRABS, NO HERMITS, Never again. I used to follow instructions of stocking them by hundreds. It took me weeks to remove all from my tank after witnessing disasters in my tank. The only one left that I have difficulties to catch is the sally light foot. I will let it go for the time being.

 

[smokin reefer]

I agree with Bob on this one. I have tons of snails in my 75, and they seem to be breeding and speading. I have not once seen a BLH kill any of my snails. The hermits just eat debris off the DSB and get in some of the GHA and hang out. NEVER saw them eat coralline algea, or any other coral. Where do all you guys get this information that you are spreading about the BLH crabs. Most of the snails you see getting eat (if you actually seen them) are already dieing or already dead.

 

[bowfront]

I've had BLH's and snails together for years without much of a problem. I don't think I have stocked either in at least a couple of years and still have plenty. IME BLH's don't pester corals to any degree and would be a resonable addition to your reef.

 

[Mabu]

I moved all the blue legs out of my main reef. They have demonstrated that they'll systematically kill every other shell-wearing creature in the tank. I had one blue leg wearing a turbo snail shell - they almost wiped out my entire snail population. I finally put them in their own little 10g to fight it out amongst themselves.

My scarlet hermits were not aggressive but I am not convinced that they are truly "reef friendly". I've caught them munching on star polyps enough times to have most of them removed.

 

[smokin reefer]

Mabu, the BLH will host a number of shells available in your reef tank, including the turbo shells. How do you know the BLH killed the turbo. I have many turbo shells laying in my reef, and the BLH are host to some. But the turbo's died of other causes though. Sounds to me like a lot of bashing that is unnessassary.

 

[Larry Grenier]

This is a wierd subject. It's strange how some can say the really hate the distructive critters and other's think they're fine or beneficial. I put 4 astraes and 4 BLH in a 25 gallon tank that needed cleaning about 3 months ago and still have all 8 critters. I believe that the astraes are better at ridding algae and the BLHs are better at removing detritus. I threw-in a pile of empty shells and the bigger 2 seem to be sporting a new "outfit" every week. They seem to know where the "used shell lot" is and go shopping there rather than bothering the snails. My friend has the same experience for a much longer time.

 

[pncstod]

I got rid of all my blue leg crabs also. They were killing all my snails. I will not keep any crabs in the reef tank. I am using the nassarius snails that go all over and in the sand bed to help stirr it up. So far so good. The nassarius snail have a little snorkel that rises above the sand and they really come alive when you put some food in the tank! The sand bed comes alive. I also have the trochus snails that seem to be the best and fastest cleaners of all my snails! I like snails and hate crabs!