Why am I Loosing my Hermits?

Sir Alex

Sir Alex

Dragon the eel (below)
I started out with 6 hermit crabs and now I have 4. I don't get why they died. My nitrates are usually below 20 ppm. There's quite a bit of algae and every once in a while I put a piece of shrimp in for them to munch on. I don't have a whole lot of shells but there seems to be enough considering how few there are. I had 5 red legs and 1 blue leg. The blue leg changed shells twice before it went missing (I found the shell it was in), but I haven't noticed any of the red legs change shells. I haven't lost any snails and my two starfish seem fine.

Any ideas?
 
I've never really thought of hermits being "long term" tank inhabitants. I'll buy'em for general cleanup and then I'm sure they pass.

What's your SG?
 
Nitrates seem really high if they are 20ppm, I would love to see them at 0. I had a die off of hermits when my tank was really clean. I'm not sure how long they live but I remember reading my beginners reef book they only last a year or two and you don't know how old they were when you got them.
 
chuck78 said:
How long did acclimate them for? If you acclimate too fast, you cut a HUGE chunk from their life span.
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I didn't acclimate them long but I've heard they don't need much. Reefcleaners says to float the bag for 15 mins then dump them in. I acclimated them using the float method for about half an hour.
 
dankolle said:
Nitrates seem really high if they are 20ppm, I would love to see them at 0. I had a die off of hermits when my tank was really clean. I'm not sure how long they live but I remember reading my beginners reef book they only last a year or two and you don't know how old they were when you got them.
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The blue leg hermit was really small when I got him which was only a couple months ago...
 
That's funny Sir Alex. I thought those little suckers were indestructible. I guess I just assumed that cause they can be such little jerks. I love 'em tho. Are you sure they died or can you just not see 6 of them? My red leg will be out of sight for days, then, there he is all over the place. And I got a litle blue leg a month ago and he's changed shells twice already and I see him only occasionally. You think when you find the empty shell they were in it's just b/c they traded up and they are not really dead?
 
I'm not exactly sure about the blue leg, but when I first got the red leg I found what looked like a body (could have been a molt), but I never found the shell.
 
dankolle said:
Nitrates seem really high if they are 20ppm, I would love to see them at 0. I had a die off of hermits when my tank was really clean. I'm not sure how long they live but I remember reading my beginners reef book they only last a year or two and you don't know how old they were when you got them.
Click to expand...

My four current crabs have been in my tank over two years, so I don't know about the lifespan being only a year.

I thought I lost one last week when I found what looked to be a complete crab outside it's shell. Cleaning the tank today though, all four were still running around.
 
Yeah, about a month after I got my crab he wasn't moving and I thought he was dead and he was wedged in a rock so I stuck a bamboo skewer in there at his body to haul him out and he moved. Later I saw his shell less body lying there in the sand and I thought I killed him. I felt awful. Then, later, there he was walking around just fine, so what I saw had been molt. Maybe that's what you found.
 
Now one of my snails has stopped responding. I tested the nitrates and they're a little over 20. He does look like he has some damage on his body.
 
No, you want your nitrates to be zero. Im not quite sure why there is a trend on here of them being 20 or below as fine, they should be at zero. I understand that with your tank its going to be near impossible to get them that low, due to its history, so you might always have to deal with short lived CUC. But when you set up your reef you are going to want your nitrates at zero. Having nitrates will prevent you from keeping some corals and slow the growth of others.
 
little_fish said:
But when you set up your reef you are going to want your nitrates at zero. Having nitrates will prevent you from keeping some corals and slow the growth of others.
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Yah I know. I hope it won't be so hard in my new tank. This tank seems to be cursed.
 
its because you have years of build up detrius, it will take a long time for that to work itself out.

Starting fresh will be much easier!
 
Okay, I'll do a water change in a couple days. So what about the injury? Are they very sensitive to wounds? I hope he makes it. Losing creatures now matter how small and cheap primitive they may be, is always sad.
 

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