Hermit ID and info please

Hi everone. I got a couple of these hermits and i put them into my fuge. They cleaned it up within a couple days, the rocks,sand and they even try crawling up the glass. they ate all the slime algae in there too.
I really want to put some of these into my DT but i want to know what type they are and if they are safe. they are from the Caribbean, if that helps.
click to enlarge

 

they call them jades some places, some "red legs" but they aren't that red. I call them jades, they are Clibinarus something. lol...I will get the species name for you, it is just that is 3am and the sun is coming...

safe as any other hermit, will eat hair algae and scavenge

 

See if you can ID him here: Les Bernard l'hermite

I don't think he is a red legged hermit, these have red legs and red bodies. Your hermit has distinct red antennas and it appears to have just the two main pinchers -- you should be able to find at least the species by following those traits.

 

thanks John k+. I forgot to mention they have a single white stripe going down the side of their leg. it is only visible if u look from the side.
good to know they are safe. I will add a couple and see what happens.
up at 3 am huh?
EDIT: never mind, you can see the stripe in the picture.

That site is great man. i was looking for something like that before i posted.k+

i think it could be Clibanarius corallinus except that i can't see if it has the white stripe or not.


I was wondering why do some people say some hermits aren't reef safe? do some eat coral?

 

A Fellow at Inland Aquatics sold me one with my bluelegs and he told me they are ok when they are small but might become a problem when he gets big.

 

thanks for your response. k+
i have a couple small ones i could put in the DT. do u know what problems it would cause exactly? eat corals? kill snails? fish? clam?

 

It doesn't appear to be any of the images on that page. The colors of the legs, the antennae, the mouthparts, and the eyes are all diagnostic characters for hermit species. Yours doesn't have the same coloration as corallinus or any of the others. If you take a good shot of the animal from the front clearly showing all these parts it would really help making an id.

Like other crustaceans individual species have different modes of feeding. Some are helpful herbivores, some are detritivores, some are scavengers, some are omnivores, some are specialized predators. Even herbivores may turn to eating meaty foods once all the algae in a tank is gone. Choice of food items may change as an animal grows larger & becomes capable of taking down larger items. That's why it's always best to do some research on the animal's eating habits first or quarantine them if you don't know how they feed.

 

Yeah, these hermits are a dark brown rather than black/purple. I will get those pictures for you a little later, the camera isn't at home right now.
i would like to know which of these categories these belong to. I know they eat algae, they also ate a piece of shrimp i threw into the fuge. i saw one trying to eat my gramma that i put into the sump b/c it wasn't doing to well. the crab had a hold of it but it was too weak to escape. the crab was less than half the size of the fish. the fish was just lying at the bottom though, it was already badly off.

 

i tried but i can't get a picture to show all those parts in detail. when i looked at a biggish one under tank lights it was actually green, so John has it right.
Do u have any info on them. (jades)

 

i got a few of them in my tank too. came as a hitch hiker on my liverock.