Hermits on the reef.

[Anonymous]

but i am curious about what i would have had, less the hermits.

Exactly...however 2 or 3 hermits of the size you mention will have a negligible impact on a larger system. In my first post, I should have said that they shouldn't be part of a reef tank in typical cleanup crew proportions.

 

[Kevin207]

I am using my 30 gallon tank as a quarantine tank and a home for corals that didn't make it. I had about 3 LARGE hermit crabs in my 120 gallon tank that just seemed to be doing laps and disrupting things, so I moved them over to the 30 gallon. This winter some early morning sunlight was hitting the tank and started up some hair algae growth. I moved a couple of rocks with a bunch of hair algae on them from the 120 and put them in the 30 and they were picked clean in 4 days by the large hermit crabs. 8O

I have some aiptasia showing up in the 30 gallon tank so I am going to try putting about 10 peppermint shrimp in there and let them rip. I have some aiptasia showing up in the 120 gallon tank as well, so I would like to move rocks and corals over to the 30 to let the shrimp do their work. I hope to nip this in the bud, but we'll see :roll:

I have had crabs and snails together for years in the 120 tank. I think the snails are good at leaving cleared paths on the glass, but I fear that the crabs do a better job with algae appearing on rock and corals. I would be interested in trying a fairly crabless tank for awhile when I start up my 9 foot tank to see how much bio diversity I can get going. I can use my 30 gallon terminator tank to do clean up of anything like aiptasia and undesirable algae, I hope.