Hi just was wondering if anyone knew if it was an ok to add a couple hermit crabs to my refugium. Its a 10Gal unit with about 10lbs of live rock and a 5" sand base with a some macro algae. It's starting to get a litte "dirty" with left over food pieces from the main tank and I wanted a way to address that. Are hermit crabs ok in a refugium? And if so what about a coupel hermit crabs and a shrimp? Really would appreciate whatever help I can get. Thanks...
Hermit Crabs and Refugium
- Thread starter Particleman
- Start date
Depends on the type of hermit, and what else you have in there. IME, hermits are very hard on snails when kept in smaller setups. Some types of hermits may pick at other critters, as well, and some kinds of shrimp will go after things like serpullid worms and such as well. If you don't have many snails--I had most trouble keeping astreas with hermits--hermits will help clean up, and cleaner or blood shrimp will be a good addition that won't threaten other micros.
Thanks I have both blue legged and scarlet hermit crabs. Was planning on plucking a couple of the bigger ones from my main tank and putting them in the refuge. I have about 8 or 9 and they seem to be getting rather large and go after the astrea's.
Yeah--if you don't have snails in the fuge, it would be a good place to isolate those from your main tank and keep the snails safe. When I had my nano up, the hermits were banished to the big tanks for assaulting the snails.
Stupid question but do snails take care of food bits? I was under the impression they only consumed algae...
Depends on the snail. Some of them like narcisus are good scavangers ones like turbo's, and astreas eat algae only. Not sure how big your main tank is but, IMO you get more bang for your buck with the smaller species. I'd also get as many different sorts of the smaller types as you can . They all eat different things in different places so diversity is your friend.
Chris
Chris