proper acclimation

[greggsvt]

I was planning on getting a bunch of Mexican red leg hermit crabs to deal with some of my algae issues and was wondering how you guys would recommend acclimating them. I've never bought crabs before and I'm not sure if they have special acclimation needs. Plus for a 75 gallon with quite a bit of green algae and red slime algae how many Hermit crabs do you think I should get?

 

[quarryshark]

I suggest a drip acclimation over the course of several hours. Here is the how to:
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showquestion.php?faq=2&fldAuto=18
Go extra slow for inverts, they are very sensative to changing conditions.

where at in Cleveland?

 

[MACATUA]

For a 75 yo u could start with 15-20 red legs maybe... you may wanna mix it up some with some other crabs and or snails over time. Of the hermits, if I am not mistaken the red legs are one of the more aggressive towards other, as far as fighting and stealing shells.

I would get a few hermits and mix in some nassarius or cerith snails for the sand and some turbos or astreas for teh glass so with all that you would have a prety well rounded cleaning crew.

HTH

 

[Shultz]

All hermits tend to favor nassarius/cerith & io snail shells sadly, even though I've given my hermits plenty of spare shells

Red legs tend to be a bit lazy, you might wanna try some zebra legs & some turbo snails for the glass.

As a guide they say "roughly" 1 snail per gallon of water, but of course you can slowly build up to a point where you cleanup crew starts to win the battle with algae.

Over feeding/poor circulation are over causes for algae?

Cheers Shelton.

 

[greggsvt]

I'm in Parma. Thanks for the suggestions!!

 

[quarryshark]

Go see Greg at Aquatic tech, he will hook you up.