photos of dwarf hermit

[Harry]

Hey, you are all buying up the dwarf crabs and now I have to wait for them to restock No problem, I plan to let my new 10-gallon sit for at least a week so that algae and biofilm can develop.

[BostonJill]

Hey, you are all buying up the dwarf crabs and now I have to wait for them to restock No problem, I plan to let my new 10-gallon sit for at least a week so that algae and biofilm can develop.

Yes, I waited at least a week till John could ship the crabs out. He told me there has been a sudden spike in dwarf crabs. I wonder if he knows you started it Harry? You should get a kickback

[Harry]

Today was a feeding day and I put in a tiny piece of Artisan Shrimp Crumble; about three times the size of the head of a pin. From the back of my tank where he was hidden, one of my hermits must have smelled it. He cam out and went for it at high speed. I never saw any of the hermits move that fast. He grabbed that tiny piece and held onto it. I had to add more so the shrimp could get some. The other two hermits totally ignored the shrimp crumble.

[BostonJill]

My little 1/2 gallon shrimp tank is on my nightstand. When I woke up this morning I had these little cute eyes staring at me.

[KenCotigirl]

Nce picture BostonJill. Thankyou for sharing.

[shmohney]

I ordered three crabs but only received two. The vendor sent me two more when I contacted them about it. The first two arrived in black nerite shells, and one swapped out almost immediately. Yesterday I found a dead crab, outside of its shell. It's soft rear body was missing, and another crab was next to it. I suspect the live crab had been feeding on the dead one, and I wonder if it even killed it. I removed the remains immediately as I was concerned about ammonia. I've been thinking that I should remove the crabs and give them their own tank, to avoid the feeding conflicts with the opae that Mustafa has discussed. Wondering, if one crab killed another, that might indicate that it wasn't getting enough food.

[Harry]

The other crab may have died because of the shock of transfer, transportation, etc. I have not had any feeding conflicts between the crabs and the Opae. The crabs hog all the food at the beginning. But they are sloppy eaters, shredding and spewing small pieces of food all over the place. Then the shrimp have plenty to feed on, all around the crabs. Also, I had two crabs in one tank. I found what appeared to be a dead crab one day. But I still had two live crabs in the tank. So I think what I believed to be a dead crab may have simply been a molted exoskeleton.

[BostonJill]

My personal opinion is not all the crabs due well with the shipping process or perhaps some are not so healthy to begin with before being shipped. I believe they do not attack each other at least I have not experience seeing it. I do think once dead they will eat the remains just like the shrimp.
I put one crab by it self in a tank and it died two days later. The other four were placed in a bigger tank and another one died. These two were not so active the minute I received them. The three remaining are doing fine. So if they make it to the second week once you receive them they will probably survive.

[shmohney]

I don't think it's transfer shock, as I've had the original 2 crabs for four weeks and the other two for three weeks. I'm pretty sure it was a body and not a molt, but I'll keep and eye out and see if can ever see all four crabs at one time (unlikely due to all the hidey-holes I've provided amongst the pile of limestone gravel rocks and coral pieces).

[YoungMrHoward]

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.

Are the Dwarf Hermit Crabs that we are talking about the same as the Blue Leg Hermits? Are your Blue Legs with your Hawaiian Red Shrimp?

[shmohney]

I have to eat a little crow. I looked in the tank last night and saw all four crabs. So what I thought was a crab body was indeed just a moult.

Mine do have blue on their front legs. Do you think then that they are bluelegs?

Has anyone had any luck getting these to reproduce?

[Harry]

Mine don't have any blue on their legs. They have grey legs with white claws. But I think the colors may change on these. Someone wrote that the colors are best when freshly molted.