Pros and Cons of Hermits in Cleanup Crew

[Bettababe1011]

Okay, so I'm trying to decide if I should get a clean up crew with hermits in it, or leave them out. My stocklist is going to be:
1 Orange Lined Cardinalfish
1 Regular Ocellaris Clown
1 Black Ocellaris Clown
1 Possum Wrasse
6 Sexy Shrimp
Assorted Corals

Hermits are reef safe, aren't they? Are there any glaring problems with hermits and my planned stock list? I don't want the hermits so badly as to change my stocklist. It's either hermits work or they don't, I just need a little help deciding.

[Bettababe1011]

Oh, and this is my list of corals, in case it makes a difference:

Button Polyp
Lavender Mushroom
Green Florescent Mushroom
Thick finger Leather Coral
Candycane Coral
Brian Coral, Favites
Green Polyp Leather
Folded Brian Coral

[carey]

The only drawback to hermits is that they often kill each other for their shells. :-( other than that they may crawl over a coral but they don't bother them or other fish.

[Bettababe1011]

Originally Posted by carey

The only drawback to hermits is that they often kill each other for their shells. :-( other than that they may crawl over a coral but they don't bother them or other fish.

So I just need to have extra shells for them? Will that cutback on that problem, if it doesn't completely solve it?

[carey]

It will def help if you have extra shells. It may not completely "cure" the problem but it will help

[Bettababe1011]

Okay. I think they are really neat, so I guess hermits are added to my plan! Thanks, Carey.

[Bettababe1011]

So here's a clean up package that I found:

20 astreas
1 trochus
5 scarlet hermits
10 Mexican blue leg hermits
1 emerald crab

How does that sound? It says for 10-20 gallons. I'm still looking at others, too.

[carey]

I think it could be ok for a 20g tank, thats alot of snails lol

[Bettababe1011]

That's what I was thinking. That's also while I'm still looking, lol.

[crister13]

You could make your own at the lfs or LA.

[Bettababe1011]

Originally Posted by crister13

You could make your own at the lfs or LA.

I'm not good at choosing how many snails, etc. I actually found a pack at liveaquaria for a 30 gallon. I think I'll go with that. And the closest lfs that has saltwater is an hour away. And they don't have all that much for snails and stuff.

[kay-bee19]

Cons: whenever I'd feed my LPS corals mysis shrimp, the hermit crabs would make their greatest attempts to rob the corals of their morsels.

[awhutter]

Pro: they're fun to watch and cleanup well.

Con: rob food from lps corals and close corals up temporarily. Kill snails sometimes. Can get stuck and die seldomly

[Sniperhank]

My hermits would kill snails for there shells all the time. I had spare shells, but they grew faster than expected. The remaining snails have doubled in size and i only got them in nov/dec to give you an idea how fast my hermits grew.

[don_chuwish]

How new/old or clean/dirty is your tank? A full CUC right from the start may be overkill, resulting in starved CUC. We just added snails & hermits as needed. Just kinda went by feel as it seemed the tank needed more or could support more.

- D

[Bettababe1011]

Hey guys, I posted this in December, and have since done more research. I've decided that I'm getting a few hermits. But thanks for your input.