do hermit crabs kill snails

[milesj60]

want to buy some hermits but I really dont want it to kill my snails.
thanks

[Bubbashrimp]

Purchase some extra shells at the lfs for your hermits.

[Grunt]

Yes they will sometimes try to take the snails shell if they aren't provided wit hanother upgrade.
Cheers

[J. Montgomery]

My hermit crabs kill snails (especially stomatella snails) to eat them. My blue-legged hermit crab is especially bad. I'm down to three hermit crabs, and once they die I don't intend to replace them. Snails are too expensive to have hermit crabs eating them.

[milesj60]

ok thanks for the help yall

[VictorD]

I've also heard that about hermits. But I've also heard that your best bet for a hermit are the scarlet hermits because they will stay herbivores. (I wouldn't take that as a guarantee thou if they decide they want to buy a new house) :)

[petoonia]

I don't know why hermits have such a bad reputation. I have had hermits in all of my tanks. I always provide plenty of empty shells, extra food, and I don't have any problems. The only hermit I ever had kill a snail for it's shell is my electric blue hermit(which I hadn't provided a large enough shell for), it has been in the same shell ever since. I understand that some people get the occasional aggressive hermit, but that doesn't make them all bad. Overall they are great scavengers, and really help keep the rock, and sand clean.

[The Kapenta Kid]

Just make sure there are several empty shells in your tank.
Here's an electric-blue who recently moved into the shell of a FW Apple snail. I have Apples in my FW tanks and put empty shells into the SW ones.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h267/Kapentakid/applehermit.jpg

[turnburn]

I had to remove a large hermit crab from my tank because it was an absolute terror! He was hell bent on eradicating my entire snail population. I've since bought some small red legged and blue legged hermits which have caused no problems at all.

[Lpabsolute]

Sometimes they will kill snails for their shells. If you have extra empty shells in your tank it would help. Also the smaller the hermits and larger the snails the better luck you will have. It's worked for me.....

[Bubbashrimp]

I had a halloween crab that killed a mexican turbo snail just to find out that the shell was to big for itself and it moved back into its original shell. The mexican turbos friend is still alive with the halloween crab in the same tank. Do you think the crab learned his lesson or did it just not run into the other snail yet?

[milesj60]

how big was that mexican turbo that died wondering if the larger ones stand a better chace because i have got two and one is like a small lemon in size.

[SnowRaven]

I think it comes down to personality as well

I have a tiny red hermit that is flipping over every snail in the tank

New tank with 16 Margarita Snails (for seeding Coraline Algae into the base rock)

This tiny red legged hermit has ripped the hard foot off 2 snails so far. One more and flush he will go!

Gave him the 2 dead snail shells for him to play with, will have to see if this works :worried:

[Calappidae]

I think it comes down to personality as well

+1, Hermit crabs will kill snails if shells or eachother if shells are not present. Usually smaller hermits like blue leg will only harm small snails like nerite and bumble bee snails.

[ZorroV]

If you want to put in hermits in your tank just get extra shells from your LFS and you will be OK. They will kill a snail when they outgrow the shell they are in.

[thorden]

Ive had two snails get killed and eaten by hermits in the past week. They arent taking the shells.
Ive made no changes to food or anything else. Anyone got any idea why?

[Calappidae]

A hermti crab is going to look for a shell. Before a hermit crab moves into a new shell it must test it out by putting it's legs in to see if there is room to get in.. if a live snail is in the way it must remove it. If there isn't enough room then the crab wasted it's time and a poor snail.