Lost Clown Tang :(

I can't believe it the other day my fiance screams for me as she was leaving for work. So i jumped out of bed and ran into the room where our fish tank is and she was frantically yelling "there is a hermit crab latched onto the clown tangs tail!" The poor clown tang was on the bottom of the tank swimming around very stressed and couldn't get the hermit off of itself. We scooped up the clown and picked off the hermit. I guess the stress was to much for it and it died the next day:-[ So sad cause it was doing so well. We had it for almost 5 or 6 months and it was very healthy and eating lots. So here is a question. I had problems with hermit crabs killing my snails and now they're latching onto fish somehow! Do I really need them?

 

I got rid of them cause i was tired of them walking all over corals and knocking stuff over. If you replace them with the necessary scavengers it should be fine.

Sorry about your loss but i've never herd of hermits attacking fish, maybe the fish was dying and the hermit just wanted lunch... What kind of hermit was it?

Marc.

 

The hermit crab would only go after the fish if it were sick or dying and not strong enough to fend for itself! Hermits will go after snails for a bigger home but aren't aggressive in that way to attack a fish and kill it! For the most, most hermits are herbivores or opportunistic feeders on dead and decaying matter!
IMO, I would keep the hermits as they very beneficial and their pros far outweigh the cons!

 

I agree with CR, hermits will only be able to atack when fish are weak. Maybe for some weird reason the clown tang wass stressed out, and not 100%.

 

What kind of hermit are we talking about? If your only hermits are blue leg, scarlett or some other small species then, most likely, the fish was dying and they were just being opportunistic.

 

I use nassarius and Super Tongan Nassarius snails along with Cleaner and Fire Shrimp as my scavengers. The Nassarius snails are great scavengers and come out at night and when they smell food. I also keep a couple of dwarf scarlet red hermits but could do without them because the shrimp and snails do very well.