Hermit crabs?

[annahay01]

Does anyone have hermit crabs in their supershrimp tanks? How do they interact with the shrimp? Also, where could I find some hermit crabs suitable for brackish water?

[dolfanjack]

Someone on another forum has a blue legged hermit crab (and a majano anemone) with his supershrimp. He mentions he has lost several crabs while acclimating them to brackish water. He has to feed on a regular bases and also has to do frequent water changes because of it. No way I would risk my shrimp in this way, but it can be done. Jack

[KenCotigirl]

There has been quite a bit discussion with keeping hermit crab with the shrimp. Search and you will find. Do not believe there is a positive consensus.

What I have found is you can only have one or two of the crabs in our small containers. They need to be fed much more than the shrimp. In my opinion with the few you could have in a tank the crabs did not add much.

Kenp

[minishrimps]

I have a 5 gallon Hermit Crab tank with five Dwarf Hairy Leg crabs that have survived well over the past 10 months...You can read about it in the other forum thread i have going. I do have some shrimp in there with them. The other day I saw a shrimp riding on a Hermit Crab. It's not the first time i saw this. It was eating algae off the crabs shell. They seem to get along fine. However, they do require time out of water on occasion and a filter to keep water circulating. And, I do feed them once a week... The three crabs I have tried to keep in my unfiltered shrimp tank all died... others have had more success with this. The last thing I'll say is that, there are few people who sell these crabs online, and I learned later they are often wild caught. Though I am obligated to keeping my crabs alive and happy as long as I can, if I had known this before I bought them, I wouldn't have...

p.s. the seller I got them from is no longer online if that says anything...