Hairy Legged Hermit Crab safe?

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CamT223

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Mar 14, 2015
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19
Good morning,

I have a tank with a porcupine puffer and a few other fish. I'd like to add a couple clownfish soon but I'm also wanting to add a few of the Red Hairy Legged Hermit Crabs (Dardanus Megistos). I think the larger species of Hermit such as this will be safe from the puffer but I'm now worried that a larger Hermit might also be able to snack on my clownfish...anyone had any experience with these?

Thanks!
 
red hairy hermits will act like most other hermits savaging for food ,
they may pick on smaller hermits and snails as they do in the wild,
they will plow through algae in no time , they will eat just about any type of soft coral and some hard coral.

red hairy hermits need a large assortment of larger shells as the grow rather quickly,and can double it's size in about a 3 month period.

these hermits can grow upwards to about 12 -16 inches , these hermits don't do well in tanks any smaller than 250g , since you have a puffer any type of invert is at risk of becoming lunch , this crab would be at risk indefinitely as that puffer also gets rather large,

as for fish getting along with this type of hermit it is fair to say until it starts to grow to about 4 inch they'll be safe anything after that they will become part of the menu if they can be caught .

I myself would be weary of keeping clowns with this crab and also with this puffer,
some clowns stay rather small unless you get one of the larger species of clowns
clowns tend to explore making it easy for the hermit or puffer to snatch him up especially if it's a small one.

these crabs are neat to watch but rather hard to keep once they start to reach there full size . since it is hard to find shells large enough to house the crab , this is why they recommend leaving this crab in it's natural environment .

I kept one in my predator tank for about 6 months till I saw how fast he grew , I ended up donating him to the Denver aquarium where I know he can live out his life happy .

I was rather lucky they took him as they normally don't.

hope this helps you see what you can encounter with this crab , I myself learned the hard way , I didn't expect it to grow as fast as it did it was like warp speed, and being in the mountains it was hard for me to obtain shells that large.
 
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