Hermit okay without its shell?

[Claw Atticas]

I just had two red leg hermits battling it out at the front of the tank, when I saw one of them leap out of its shell and climb on top of the other hermit's shell to hide. I transferred the now-shelless hermit to one of those breeder nets to keep him safe from the fish and other hermits, but is he alright until I can get a bigger shell for him? Right now the instigator hermit is either checking the now-empty shell to see if it's the right size, or looking extremely confused on where the hermit went.

 

[Zer0]

I would say get him the shell pronto. I think hermits die w/o shells. And if not.. im sure that they cant be very happy without one.. since that's their main form of protection.

 

[Etunes]

Ya, get him a shepp pronto. It will die from stress if not and it will be prone to diseases do to the stress. I am curious, can you post a picture of it without a shell. Never seen a hermit without one. Also so this doesn't happen again i would put empty shells of all sizes in the tank. So they won't have to battle again for shells.

 

[Zer0]

Great advice Etunes. Putting seperate empty shells in the tank is an excellent ways to keep hermits fighting other hermits and killing snails for their shells. I would keep all sorts of sizes too just in case they get bigger and need a bigger shell as well.

 

[Claw Atticas]

Not the best of pictures, but here's him out of his shell. I had to hold him in one hand to keep him from the other fish and hermits, and take the picture with the other.




And now, after the first hermit left him alone and left his shell alone, I gave the shell back to him, and he jumped right in, so crisis averted.

Also I dunno if this pic of photoshopped, or someone actually made a glass shell for a hermit, but either way, it's pretty cool.

 

[Etunes]

Glad to hear everything is a ok. Awesome picture though, thanks for posting.

 

[JPKeenan]

Almost reminds me of an ant for some reason.

And is a way cool pic photo shopped or not

 

[juice28]

that is a gangsta pic! i might start marketing those lol. naa but I actually went to my LFS to get some empty shells but they were kinda high, You can go to the craft section in wal mart, where all the beads and stuff is at, and they have shells i bought a bog of shells, it had probably close to 50 complete shells of various shells and i washed them and just dropped them all around the tank about 6 months ago, now there are like 6 that are empty but they are quite large, probably an inch and a half long...you could try that its a quick fix and it only cost me a couple bucks..much cheaper than my LFS

 

[Zer0]

That's a really cool picture of the clear shell. Also, juice28, if you look on most livestock websites, they sell empty shells for pretty cheap. I know that liveaquaria.com sells 50 shells with assorted sizes and shapes for 12$. I know other places sell them cheaper as well. You can also get them in smaller quantities too. I would rather purchase those from a livestock website rather than go to walmart lol. Not saying that's not a good money saving idea, just saying in general.