photos of dwarf hermit

[Harry]

A member asked for photos of my dwarf hermits. It happened that one was right at the front of the tank, so I snapped a quick shot. I'm also including an enlargement. These guys coexist peacefully with my Opae.

[BostonJill]

Nice picture! Are they going for the nerite shells? I thought the crab was in a nice shell but not sure if that was one of the new nerite shells. I still haven't gotten my little guys yet. I hope they don't freeze to death with this weather.

[shmohney]

I ordered some too. Looking forward to trying some new critters in the tank with the Opae.

[Harry]

I like the picture too. Until I took it, I really didn't really know how they looked, not in such detail anyway. They are so small and usually not in the front. The macro lens gave me a good opportunity to view them. They won't go for the new shells until they molt.

[Iwantshrimp]

I need to get me some of those!

[KenCotigirl]

Thanks for the pictures Harry. I ordered five but he was sold out. Need to wait another week. I think this forum bought them all up. Are they very active? My brother in law has a saltwater tank. His hermits are lazy. Do not move much.

[Harry]

These dwarfs are fairly active and most can always be seen moving around and cleaning up the tank. One of them seems to stay in back behind the rocks, not as active. Sometimes the shrimp are on them, likely eating algae or biofilm off their shells. I will be ordering about 6 more for my ten-gallon, which I have yet to set up. I guess I will have to wait for them to restock, but it will be at least a week or two before the tank is set up. I will use the dwarf hermits and Hawaiian Pipipi snails to cycle the tank, after which I will add the Opae.

[KenCotigirl]

Harry, remember hermit crabs are like shrimp and sensitive to ammonia and nitrites. The snails should be ok for helping out the cycling process. Just do not want you to have any avoidable losses.
Ken

[Harry]

I'm thinking six of these tiny dwarf crabs and about five of the Pipipi snails to start. That should be a fairly small bio-load for a ten-gallon tank. I will add a small amount of spirulina to the tank about a week before I put any crabs or snails in. That will give some time for biofilm and algae to develop. Then I will add the crabs and snails and perhaps a tiny piece of sinking algae wafer, just in case. I'll monitor for ammonia. If all goes well, I'll start adding shrimp, ten at a time, building to 60. It will cost me more in shipping fees, but I don't want to put in a large number of shrimp all at once.

[Kinetikx]

I put 6 dwarf hermit crabs in my 20 gallon quite a while ago, before I even got my shrimp actually. I lost one a few months ago for unknown reasons but other than that their presence has been fairly uneventful. I added quite a few empty snail shells of various sizes and a couple have molted enough to fit in the largest shells. (Shells that should be large enough for the rest of their lives actually) Their bumbling behavior is a nice counterpoint to the graceful shrimp. Another nice benefit of the crabs is that they gobble up any uneaten food so spoiled food isn't ever an issue.

At first I was afraid their presence might inhibit mating of the shrimp but recently that fear has proved unfounded. I was actually holding off from even mentioning their addition until I felt they were successful. I'm fairly confident in saying that in my tank, so far they are. In smaller tanks I might be more cautious but larger volumes of water seem to support them.

[KenCotigirl]

Nice update kinetikx. I just got 4 in the mail. Should have taken their picture as they have disappeared. Put two in two different tanks. The smaller two in a one gallon. The larger two in a 7.5 gallon.

[Harry]

One of mine has disappeared into the back and doesn't come out. The others are very active and all over the place. I've read that some are not big movers for long periods of time.

[KenCotigirl]

In less than a hour one of the crabs changed shells. Unexpected. The vendor sent a nice mix of tiny shells. Not the black nerite shell they are in.

[Kinetikx]

That is probably fairly normal. I'd expect that if its a large supplier of marine animals they are in holding pens that don't really allow them to have their choice of shells. Sometimes mine even switch back and forth between two shells before they finally decide which one to make permanent. And I wouldn't mind if they got hungry and decided to eat some of my overabundant snail population either for a shell or just because, but so far that hasn't happened.

As an aside, freshly molted blue leg hermits are strikingly beautiful. I wouldn't mind having a tank dedicated just to them.

[BostonJill]

I received my hermit crabs today. They are the cutest. I stuck one in my 1/2 gallon tank. I stuck four in my five gallon tank. The ones in the big tank have hide themselves but the one in the small tank I can always find. You can check him out on my live shrimp cam. The camera seems to only be working on desktops and laptops. Some people have reported they can see it on their iPads. http://209.6.131.4:1688
I'm hoping the ones in the big tank will come out once they get use to the tank. When I placed them in their all the shrimp start going for their shells probably eating the algae off. They do seem like a lot of fun.