Deadly Hermit

[delslo]

I am trying to find out some information. I have only one hermit crab remaining. I added 12 hermits, mixed scarlet, halloween, and electric blues roughly a month ago, but now only one hermit,  pre-addition, remains and there is ample food. IS this normal, he is darker in coloration with hairs on his legs. I want to boil the little bugger!!!

[Medym]

Is it possible there is another crab who is the actual threat?  A hitchhicker preying on your poor little hermits?

[Hookup]

IMO and experience, blue-legs are aggressive and kill other blue-legs.  This happens with all crabs btw if there are no new homes to grow into... they kill each other trying to take over shells... but blue-legs are simply aggressive and hateful and often kills snails and other blue legs.

admit, never heard of a death match (12 down to 1) before... so i'm not saying 100% that this happened... but some attrition i would expect from the fact that blue-legs are angry by nature.

[Cheebs]

I would gree with Hookup. Scarlets especially ar evulnerable to the blue-legs, I've witnessed a few little attacks myself. Scarlets are much less aggressive, and sometimes a big, dominant blue-leg can go on a rampage. I've had to remove a couple that were getting really big in my tanks..

[delslo]

That's the problem all the electric blue's, halloween's, and scarlets are dead. I saw this little bugger kill the last big scarlet last night and I have tons of shells in there, i keep a stockpile in a back corner of the tank. I will post a pic when I get home.

[Cheebs]

An issue too is that often when you buy "blue-legs, yellow tips, red-legs" etc, in other words the cheaper hermits (because filling a tank up with scarlets get smighty pricey) youc an sometimes get a mixed variety of hermits. It cna be very difficult to tell when they are small, so it's tough to blame the vendor. I once had one such hermit grow into this giant brown beast, he got to massive proportions compared to the rest, and I had to give him away because he way causing trouble. But size isn't everything, you might just have an extra aggressive one. I'd love to see a pic!

[Greatwhite]

I think I'd start looking for other predators in your tank...  Mantis shrimp will kill hermits easily.  Have you lost anything else that you noticed?

[az]

i'd take out the hairy leg hermit for sure, he is the one.

[Hookup]

i'd take out the hairy leg hermit for sure, he is the one.

+1

[delslo]

I think I'd start looking for other predators in your tank...  Mantis shrimp will kill hermits easily.  Have you lost anything else that you noticed?

no nothing else missing recently. I have a little pistol shrimp that would have been easier pickings for a mantis if it was around. I have been keeping an eye out at feedings too for mantis, but none.

[delslo]

So I finally figured out what kind he is, he's a striped hermit. Is he the problem? if not what could it be I still have a pistol shrimp in there.

[Feivel]

i doubt that, i have 20 of those in my tank, so far no problems, some would say they are large size, 25c roundish but i have some toonie size round ones too, as well as some "pea" size guys. all different colors and types, scarlets, blue knuckles, striped, fast, red, blues etc... porbably at least 60 in total, side note mine dont have hairy legs

[delslo]

mine needs to shave his