Snails or Crabs??

[reice05]

Does anyone have just snails in their tanks? I got around 14 blue/red legged hermit crabs, 2 Turbo snails and maybe 1 Nassarius Snail even though i had 12+. I was thinking of getting rid of my hermit crabs and just have snails in my tank. I just figure snails would do a better job on my sand bed and eating some of the GHA that the hermits are just ignoring. Or maybe i can cut my hermits down to maybe 5 or so and having a majority of Nassarius, Cerith Snails, and whatever other snail i should get lol.

[Octoshark]

Many people with seahorse tanks do not have hermit crabs and do just fine without them. My girlfriend has a seahorse tank with snails only and there are no problems. She has herbivorous, omnivorous, and carnivorous snails so they get it all done.

Nassarius and ceriths are great choices.

[muddybluewater]

What size tank? I have 50+ hermits and 80+ snails in my 120g. I like having both.

[reice05]

I got a 75g. I had atleast 20 Nassarius snails and within a 2 weeks the hermits killed my snails all i have is 1 left but come to think of it i havent seen him in a few days he might of got eatin.

[mndfreeze]

I have a tiny 14G nano with about 4 blue legged, 2 scarlet hermits, and 5 nassarius snails and never had them kill a single one.

I added ceriths tonight and IMMEDIATELY the crabs started checking out the snails as if they were just shells lying around, but other then a random poke here and there and seeing they were occupied they wandered off to repeat the process hours later.

My nassarius snails are far to fast and bury to quick for the crabs to have any success at killing even if they wanted to.

[mann1139]

I think hermit crabs have great lobbyists, because we all seem to buy a ton of them, but they don't seem to be great at what they do.

I'm down to 1 or 2 hermits in my 30g and 2 small hermits in my 12g, and I don't plan on adding any more.

The cerith, astraea, nass snails, and pepp shrimp I have seem to do an adequate job cleaning up, and I don't feel a need to disturb the balance.

[Marshall1385]

I had the same problem in my 75 with hermits eating my snails. I just took all my hermits out and bought a few snails. That was probably 3 wks ago, haven't noticed any problems yet

[madkat]

only time I hav ever had a problem between snails and crabs was when I did not keep enough empty shells laying around. otherwise snail genocide is a huge problem.

[jsharp1]

if you have hermits you should make sure to have plenty of empty shells for them, otherwise they seem to kill the snails and take their shells. That's what I have seen mine do anyways.

[mndfreeze]

I think hermit crabs have great lobbyists, because we all seem to buy a ton of them, but they don't seem to be great at what they do.

I'm down to 1 or 2 hermits in my 30g and 2 small hermits in my 12g, and I don't plan on adding any more.

The cerith, astraea, nass snails, and pepp shrimp I have seem to do an adequate job cleaning up, and I don't feel a need to disturb the balance.

My kids end up being the ultimate lobbyist's. That and hermit crabs are just plain silly looking with goofy clunky behavior.

On a side note, I have been watching the tank since I put those ceriths in to keep an eye on things and watched one of the ceriths whack a hermit upside the head when he poked it. Knocked it all the way from the top of the rock work down. So far snails:1 hermits: 0