Mystery of the dead snail

[Kazarko]

I got a large red hermit crab and some huge Mexican turbo snails recently to take care of my ever growing algae. Today I find pieces of one of those large snails chewed up in the tank, and I started to wonder what happened, because I couldn't see its shell anywhere. At first I thought a fish in the tank decided to eat the snail. Then tonight while the lights were out I realized it was much weirder than that. During the day the hermit crab shell was just lying there so I assumed it was hiding inside its shell. At night I saw it was being really active and eating my hair algae (Yay!) while wearing his new trophy snail shell ... ugh oh :shock:

I already bought a bigger shell for him but didn't put it into the tank right away earlier this week, and I definitely didn't think he would take it upon himself to eat a snail to get a bigger shell. I guess you live and learn through experiences like this... inverts are full of surprises.

 

[Smitty]

Lol...yep. Hermits are notorious for killing snails for shells. Its in their genetic make-up. Even if you do supply them with empty shells, they will still kill.

 

[dcantucson]

Those large Red Hermits are the worse. They'll kill each other for a shell. Get the small electric blue hermits; they're a lot more peaceful.

 

[unboundmind]

:twocents: we've found the blue legged the worst as far as snail hunting goes, our 2 large red legged hermits keep to themselves........so far anyway.:helm2:

 

[dcantucson]

:twocents: we've found the blue legged the worst as far as snail hunting goes, our 2 large red legged hermits keep to themselves........so far anyway.:helm2:

No................. really? :shock::shock::shock: