Case of the missing hermits

Hello Everyone,


First a little update on the tank since it's been a while since my last point. The tank has now passed the 6 month point and everything is living happy and peaceful.

Run down on the tank.

75g dual drilled with 30g sump with skimmer/refuge.
80lbs of live rock and a 3 inch sand bed.
I am running a 48 inch t5hd 4bulb light set up split with bright whites and blues. I also have a reefbright 24inch blue L.E.D. Everything is set on timers along with power heads.

For live stock I have. (based on what I bought)

Clean up crew and other inverts consists of:
21 hermits (variety)
25 snails,(variety of sand sifters and algae eaters) the number of Nassarsus snails currently is well over 25. They seem to multiply like rabbits.
3 emerald crabs
1 sally light foot
1 scarlet cleaner shrimp
1 sand sifting star
1 serpent star
1 pin cushion urchin
LTA

Fish:
2 clowns
2 firefish
3 Chromis
1 Blenny
1 Six Line Wrasse

Coral:
Frogspawn Coral
Anchor Coral
Waving hand Xenia
Kenya tree
cabbage coral
Montipora x 2
red, green and orange zoa
2 different color of green button ployps
Green Mushrooms
and a finger leather coral.

All coral was bought as frags. Since purchase, the frogspawn and grown from 2 heads to 4 heads. The Kenya tree has grown from 7 fingers now to the point where I have two separate frags that are larger then when I got it. The mother is almost 10x the purchase size. All of my polyps and zoa have spread nicely as well.

Parameters have ran consistent since I started adding live stock. The tank was cycled for 6 weeks with live rock before hand. I have had a few casualties, 2 chromis fell victim to the harassment of the blenny and I lost 2 shrimp. One to my serpent star the night of a molt and the other, I am thinking because I neglected to remove a dead snail thinking a hermit would take care of it for me. Not know how toxic they are at that point. Aside from those losses everything else is happy.

Please before anyone starts saying the 2 chromis died from over populations. At that point their were only 5 chromis and the blenny in the tank. My problem was that the 2 were quite a bit smaller then the other 3.

Now with everything out of the way to save the questions later, here is why I have this long winded post in the invert section.

With all good that is happening in my tank, and with absolutely no fluctuation in the parameters I am having an issue with my hermits.

From what is listed above, I don't see anything that is an immediate threat to my hermits. Yet still I seem to find empty shells all over the place. Yes, I know I find them in all kinds of other shell around the tank. I just noticed I have less and less hermits kicking about. At any given point I as able to see 5 or 6 of them doing their thing. Now I find it hard to find one or two in plain sight. Last night I did a long search in the night with a flashlight and I was only able to see 5 or so. I did on the other hand find out I have what looks to be at least a 6 inch fireworm hiding in my mushrooms.

Could he be the culprit? or did I make some mistakes on my stocking? Could it be another hitchhiker I haven't found yet?

Anyone have any suggestions?

Also, I will take suggestions on getting rid of the fireworm? last night I placed a piece of calamari in a plastic water bottle with a small hole cut in the side then a larger pen cap fed throw the hole creating trap with easy access, not so easy exit. I managed to catch 10 baby snails but no worm.

Thanks for the help everyone one. Again sorry for the long winded post. I just figured it would be easier then answering all the questions.

 

Believe it or not, some 6-lines will eat hermits. He could be the issue.

 

The six line is the most recent addition, it's only been in there for about a week or so. I had my first suspicion about the hermits about a month ago. Last night was the first time I thought about it again and notice there were even fewer. The six line, could be part of it tho. I will keep an eye on it. But I haven't even seen approach a hermit yet.