Why would Hermit crab keep eating other crabs?

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TheChad

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Dec 20, 2005
Messages
568
Location
Warrensburg, IL
Hey all,

I have a white hermit crab, I don't know exactly what type he is..

But he ate our Emerald Crab, which to my knowledge was alive when he ate him, and then today he ate our Sally Lightfoot crab which was alive when he ate him..

The Emerald crab was kind of slow, (the white hermite crab is pretty slow), but the sally lightfoot is bigger and pretty fast, so i don't know how the hermit crab caught him to eat em..

Any ideas?

Thanks,

-TheChad
 
Yeah its hard to believe he caught a sally lightfoot. Are you sure it`s not the shedded molt.
 
No.

I just got home and my wife said "Al (For albino hermit crab) is eating Sally" I look and sure enough he is... I don't know if it was a molting or not..

My wife said it looked like sally was moving... but i don't know I didn't home untill later...

I guess I will find out if i see the sally light foot around..

But the Emerald crab was definitly not a molting...

-TheChad
 
ya more likely it was just a molt and the hermit was cleanin it up or something...i've had my hermits molt and i thought that another one had killed it for its shell, but i still have all 4 of them lol.
 
Those white hermit crabsare aggresive as heck! Those things are killers. Im actually not surprised at all...I would remove him (I actually removed one from my tank) I have even seen them snap off the spines of long spined urchins...
 
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