CUC issues w/hawkfish

[biguebs]

Hi all - so I’m about 3-4 weeks into adding fish and CUC to my 29 gal after cycle.

I started with the staple pair of ocell clowns, they’re doing great. Waited about a week, added 3 hermits for CUC. Not much algae at all yet so held off on snails. No corals yet, but planning to start with some soft.

Yesterday, added a flame hawkfish from QT.
And... 2 crabs were eaten in the night. One hermit untouched but was much larger than the other two.

So I had read that hawkfish definitely eat snails, but it seemed to be fairly reasonable for the hermits to be safe. Clearly small hermits not going to be in the cards. I want to keep the hawkfish... anyone have ideas for an alternate approach to CUC in this tank?

 

[BlennyTime]

He could have just been hungry, if he’s brand new to the tank. Flame hawks are known to pick at snails and hermit crabs, but shouldn’t be hunting them down. You may just have to make sure you are feeding enough, and live with the occasional loss.

They are known to go hunt down shrimp, so would avoid adding those.

 

[HB AL]

Hi all - so I’m about 3-4 weeks into adding fish and CUC to my 29 gal after cycle.

I started with the staple pair of ocell clowns, they’re doing great. Waited about a week, added 3 hermits for CUC. Not much algae at all yet so held off on snails. No corals yet, but planning to start with some soft.

Yesterday, added a flame hawkfish from QT.
And... 2 crabs were eaten in the night. One hermit untouched but was much larger than the other two.

So I had read that hawkfish definitely eat snails, but it seemed to be fairly reasonable for the hermits to be safe. Clearly small hermits not going to be in the cards. I want to keep the hawkfish... anyone have ideas for an alternate approach to CUC in this tank?

Do the hermits have plenty of hiding spots in your rockwork? Smaller hermits might actually work better since they can get into smaller crevices. I have 14 fish 5 of them triggers in my reef and my hermits have learned to become nocturnal due to the predators lurking while the lights are on. One advantage my hermits have is that I have alot of rock and coral offering them a plethora of places to hang out and do there thing. Here is a pic of my tank showing how much rock and coral they have to chill on while the predators are on patrol

 

[biguebs]

Inhbe

Do the hermits have plenty of hiding spots in your rockwork? Smaller hermits might actually work better since they can get into smaller crevices. I have 14 fish 5 of them triggers in my reef and my hermits have learned to become nocturnal due to the predators lurking while the lights are on. One advantage my hermits have is that I have alot of rock and coral offering them a plethora of places to hang out and do there thing. Here is a pic of my tank showing how much rock and coral they have to chill on while the predators are on patrol

I have 20-25 pounds of rock in the 29 gal, I think there are sufficient hides but this is a good point about the smaller crabs.

Also as an update - I only lost 1 crab. The other was upside down and appeared empty but now that I’m back this evening he is in fact alive. Lol

I think I will watch and see. If I have to add a few crabs every few weeks I suppose not a huge deal since they are only a couple bucks. But wasn’t planning on creating a “live feed” situation certainly.