Scarlett hermets

I ended up getting a few of these when I recently aqqured some fish from a fellow reffer that was closing down his tank So it was a few little ones and one that was in a large shell probally about the size of a half dollar. The small ones just seem to be eating the algae and detritus (sp) but the large one seemes to be going after snails. I cant tell because I have empy shells too froms some snais that have died but is this thing going to be captin destructo? Ill bring it to the lfs before it does. It has no blue or blue spots on it just looks like a large red scarlett with big claws.

 

I had a few and never found them to be aggressive. Are you sure the large one is the same species? Maybe it's just cleaning out old snail shells?

 

No im not sure but it looks the same. I do assume its just cleaning the shells but I wanted to make sure it is ok in the tank. lask thing I want is it to attack anything in the tank.8)

 

scarlets can even get pretty large if given an appropriate size shell. and i think any hermit if big enough and hungry enough, or just for fun will take down a snail. all mine (multiple diff species) seem to have a hunger for nass. snails, yeah the expensive tonga kind!!!

 

Hi, most crabs are opportunists and will eat a snail or other crab if they so desire. This article; Scarlet Hermit Crab (Paguristes cadenati)
will give some basic info. I feed my tank Copepods twice a week. I use Reef Nutrition Arcti-pods. Coral, fish and my crabs all eat them so it is an ideal food source and the crabs stay fed and leave each other alone.

 

I just added 50 in of those last week a few dident make it and it now has about 15 shells on the ground and it seemed it was attacking them but wasent sure if it was the 4-5 that dident make it and fell intot he rocks or eating the ones wandering around.