Do hermit crabs kill snails just for their shells?

[Tbg299]

I have a couple of large Turbo snails in my tank. This morning I woke up, and saw that a hermit crab in my tank had killed and taken my largest Turbo snail's shell. I've honestly never seen this happen before. I give them big shells but I guess this crab really wanted this snail's shell.

 

[schooncw]

I make sure I always have a variety of empty shells in my tank. Nature instructs to take the easiest, safest way

 

[MarshallB]

You can buy assorted sized shells on amazon ( just boil them first ). All the shells i've added are all currently in use.

 

[radiata]

What's interesting is HOW hermits kill snails. They get the snail to retreat into its shell and then keep tapping on the operculum to keep it in. The snail suffocates, and the crab gets a new home and a meal. This can be demonstrated - put some live snails in a small tank and add a shell-less hermit. You can get a hermit out of its shell by holding it over the tank with some tongs and lighting a match under it.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Pretty much all crabs will kill by opportunity. My emerald crab killed my brittle star and a few snails even though there was plenty of food. Crabs just do what crabs do.

 

[ying yang]

What's interesting is HOW hermits kill snails. They get the snail to retreat into its shell and then keep tapping on the operculum to keep it in. The snail suffocates, and the crab gets a new home and a meal. This can be demonstrated - put some live snails in a small tank and add a shell-less hermit. You can get a hermit out of its shell by holding it over the tank with some tongs and lighting a match under it.

Very interesting to know.thanks for the info.
Nature is amazing right,i would of thought hermit just eats it alive till it dead and good to know how to get hermit out of shell if ever need to know ^_^

 

[aggrofish]

Half the hermits in my tank are crusing around in shells I added. They leave the snails alone

 

[Gtinnel]

My hermits used to kill my turbos snails and not even use the shells. I swear they were killing for sport more than anything else.

 

[Uzidaisies]

I was hoping I’d get lucky, but my hermits are making moves on my snails now. This morning I found three hermits in the corner with two flipped snails. I broke it up in time. That’s the second time I’ve broken it up, one of these times they’ll get the shells. One of my snails has been at the top of the tank the last day and a half, seemingly aware of his inevitable fate. I won’t be buying any more hermits. The snails are much more valuable to me in terms of eating algae, and the hermits also like to constantly bumble across my corals. I had one just doing laps around the perimeter of the tank the other day, crawling over the zoas and a new finger leather. Zoas spent half the day retracted until I moved them out of the path.

 

[Uzidaisies]

I’ve added only a few shells that thought were a good size, a crab will occasionally check it out, stick it’s head it, then leave, sometimes so hastily that it looks like they saw a ghost in there. I’ve been having a hard time finding the right size shells I guess.

 

[parkwaytrash]

In my experience, absolutely

 

[landlubber]

i was buying mostly astrea snails and instead of replacing them i just committed to scarlett hermits. they're more interesting to watch, aren't inept at righting themselves should they lose their footing and over the past couple of years feel they do as good a job.

 

[Rcpilot]

I've been in this hobby since 1985.

I stopped keeping crabs or shrimp in my tanks in 2005.

All crabs are opportunistic predators. They eat stuff they can catch. Period. I've seen an emerald attack a nessarious snail, dig it up from the sand bed and kill it. I've seen well fed hermits kill snails and walk away. I've seen coral banded shrimp attack and kill sleeping fish. I've seen true peppermints eat zoas.

Crabs and shrimp are good for 1 thing .... dinner.

 

[TheDragonsReef]

Ive had them kill snails just to find out they didnt like the shell and go back to their old one. Same thing for hermits vs hermits sometimes. If you have hermits you just have to be prepared to add snails every so often.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Ive had them kill snails just to find out they didnt like the shell and go back to their old one. Same thing for hermits vs hermits sometimes. If you have hermits you just have to be prepared to add snails every so often.

I caught a late night battle just a week or so ago. Walked past the tank and had a "what on earth is that?" moment. Big red leg out of his shell, clinging to the rock while another decided whether it really wanted that shell or not. In the end neither crab wanted that shell and it's empty collecting coralline. No fatalities that time but one crab definitely had a rough evening while the other was shell shopping.

 

[Turkey head]

This is why I don’t keep hermit crabs anymore. They definitely kill snails for their shells. I got tired of putting in snails and over the next few day seeing the crabs now wearing the new snails shells

 

[Turkey head]

This is why I don’t keep hermit crabs anymore. They definitely kill snails for their shells. I got tired of putting in snails and over the next few day seeing the crabs now wearing the new snails shells

 

[Boaz1021]

i’ve have hermit crabs go for each other for their shells. i started my 40b with 4 red legged and 4 blue legged hermits and now i can’t even tell you how many of each i have. i can definitely tell i have more red legged than blue though.

i over feed my tank due to my chaeto not being harvested so i know it’s not hunger.

Crips and Bloods going at it! You should have known better.

 

[Uzidaisies]

Couldn't hold the gates, they got one or two of my Astraeas today. Lost some good men out there.

 

[Uzidaisies]

 

[ying yang]

First video caught the hermit literally wrestling the 2.5 inch conch and seperated them then videod the conch jumping to safety and 2nd video 2 days after and heard conch jumping against the glass and at end of video can see large hermit covered in snail gunk like first time so seems he at it again and target feed all hermits few times per week and got lots empty shells i put in there of varying sizes plus about 6 empty shells just turned up so thats hermits probably getting killed by other hermits and seen one murder with my own eyes and now just came home and second biggest hermit his shell now being worn by the largist hermit and only 2 other large shells like that and both empty plus the shell the large one in so suspect another hermit killed by the largish one which up until last week i was saying he largish hairest and seems most docile and used to run away from smaller hermits but now must got tasye for blood and just kills anything he wants lol