Clam in a tank filled with Crabs?

BloopFish · Jan 18, 2020

Currently have a 13.5 gallon thats loaded with crabs. I have a halloween hermit crab, 20+ electric orange hermit crab, decorator crabs, pitho crabs, all of which are crabs that don't touch my corals. On the other hand, I put a tiny cross barred venus clam in the sand bed and I later found that something ate it (not sure if it died first or if they killed it). I was wondering what you guys think about having a Maxima clam with so many crabs (mostly hermit crabs).

mtfish · Jan 18, 2020

That would be a no vote from me. How do you feed that many crabs in such a small tank? You would just be adding a sitting duck with no chance of survival. If they dug up the small bivalve in the sand bed, you will have every crab swarming the maxima the moment it was added.

DSC reef · Jan 18, 2020

Crabs mostly feed on dying tissue but they are also opportunistic feeders and I don't trust them. That's a small tank with a lot of crabs plus it depends what lighting you have.

GabeM · Jan 18, 2020

I have a large noae clam with a decorator clam with no issues although he makes me nervous when he is right on top of it.

BloopFish · Jan 18, 2020

mtfish said:
That would be a no vote from me. How do you feed that many crabs in such a small tank? You would just be adding a sitting duck with no chance of survival. If they dug up the small bivalve in the sand bed, you will have every crab swarming the maxima the moment it was added.

Lots of pellets. I throw in fish scraps in there once in a while.

MERKEY · Jan 18, 2020

All grabs will eat what they want hahaha

I am bias as I had an emerald eat clams and zoas.

BloopFish · Jan 18, 2020

Honestly thats what I thought about crabs and clams, but I know that there are many people who keep hermits and emeralds with clams, so I was wondering what the deal was.

mtfish · Jan 18, 2020

I may have been a little harsh with my first post, but I still see issues. Just like tangs are herbivores, they will eat meat when the opportunity arises. I do not believe that hermit crabs only eat dead things, but will go after anything they can easily get a hold of. I have no idea what else you have in this tank, but that seems like a high number of crabs for that size tank. In the end, you are the best gauge of what you can put in your tank. I guess if you feed heavily, do larger water changes, the crabs can be happy as a clam (sorry for the stupid idiom). Hope it works out well for you.

TheShrimpNibbler · Jan 18, 2020

I would say no. Even if a hermit isn’t trying to eat your clam, damage could be done just by walking across it if the clam closed on a sharp shell. Plus, in a 13 gallon, a full grown maxima would be taking up quite a bit of space.

DenverSaltyFarm · Jan 22, 2020

might not be a good mix, even if they dont pick at the clam they more than likely will crawl all over it keeping it closed. I had a cleaner shrimp walk over the mantle of a clam i had causing it to always be closed and it died. I have not shrimp now and both clams doing great

Terri Caton · Jan 22, 2020

I have 2 Maxima Clams and my Hermits never touch them.

Spearo · Jan 26, 2020

I love my inverts, I have a maxima clam and a mimosa (squamosa x maxima hybrid) in a 29g with probably 60 or more blue legs and have no issues. I'm not a fan of emerald crabs, years back I watched one pinch the mantle of my maxima clam although it may have been on its way out. Recently I watched an emerald take bites out of my setosa and lepto, love them for their grazing ability but I took them all out.