Hermit crab help

[poopy99]

I have a few hermits and shrimps in my reef tank and from time to time I see signs that they have molted. Would you clean up the old shells or leave them? Also, I have a sand sifting starfish and if I were to clean up all of that stuff during a water change by vacuuming,would it be affected?

[AZBigJohn]

Cleaning up after the shrimp molts won't hurt anything. Leave the leftover crab shells for younger, smaller crabs to take over. Cleaning the sand up starves your sand-sifting starfish of food, but they eat detrius, not leftover shrimp molts...

[poopy99]

What i'm trying to say is if I were to clean up after the hermits when they molt, I would do it when I do a water change. I normally don't disturb the sand bed nor clean it. Its kind of a two part question, should I let the clean up crew take care of the old molted shells and should I clean my sand by vacuuming it ?

[Makena95GT]

Idk if its the same for SW hermies but land ones use that molt to gain calcium after the molt and most people advise against removing it.

Are they leaving the molt alone?

[poopy99]

Well i used to take the old body/molts out thinking that they were my hermits dying, until I seen a hermits body ripped out of its shell lying dead. This was the largest hermit in my tank (now dead) lying near the still alive largest hermit in my tank.

So now I do leave them alone but I have been having problems with nitrates and phosphates so thats for the two part question.

I'm wondering if I should clean up my sand, everything in and on it. But I do have a sand sifting star fish to consider. Oh and I pushed the old molt over to my pom pom crab and she took it but not sure if it ate it.

[Crooked Reef]

I leave the molts. What size tank do you have and how much sand? Sand sifting stars will starve to death and strip the sand bed of fauna in most home aquariums.

[poopy99]

I have a 46 bowfront with about an 1inch of sand.Would you clean the sand during water changes?