Dogface puffer and sub adult emperor angel odd behavior

Naso110 · Mar 30, 2022

So I have a 180g FOWLR with 5 Anthias, juvenile naso Tang, kole Tang, Hippo tang, mimic tang a few dwarf angels, a pair of Ocellasis clowns, pink talk trigger and a pair of huge hermit crabs. So I inherited these random hermits in a tank I bought for the tangs and clowns. All $100 including the tank.

I didn't want to toss the hermits in the sump so figured, good meal for the dogface puffer or the trigger. So now not only are the hermits still in there, the emperor, puffer and trigger all keep swimming up on there sides as if the hermits are cleaner shrimp! Super weird, been in the SW hobby almost 30 yrs. Never seen anything like this. I'll try to get a few pics up. Any thoughts? Anyone else ever see anything like this,?

blaxsun · Mar 30, 2022

Nope, my fish routinely nip at anything I drop into the tank. Would love to see some pictures of your fish paying homage to their new hermit overlords!

Naso110 · Mar 30, 2022

So here's the puffer and emperor angel but everytime I go to the tank they head to the glass to be fed. But these are just common giant hermits found all over in FL. I guess the previous owner of the gang of fish, didn't know that these are really not great hermits for clean up or tanks.

Naso110 · Mar 30, 2022

blaxsun said:
Nope, my fish routinely nip at anything I drop into the tank. Would love to see some pictures of your fish paying homage to their new hermit overlords!

Close as I can get. So weird.

blaxsun · Mar 30, 2022

"We welcome our new hermit overlords!"

Your image is now making me reevaluate the sizes I've given to my hermit crabs. Your "huge" is probably a large on my scale (I have an algae eating hermit that's about 2" wide).

Naso110 · Mar 30, 2022

blaxsun said:
"We welcome our new hermit overlords!"

Your image is now making me reevaluate the sizes I've given to my hermit crabs. Your "huge" is probably a large on my scale (I have an algae eating hermit that's about 2" wide).

Maybe the pic is deceptive. The shell there in is about 3.5-4". I didn't want overlords! I wanted them to be dinner.hahaha

blaxsun · Mar 30, 2022

Naso110 said:
Maybe the pic is deceptive. The shell there in is about 3.5-4". I didn't want overlords! I wanted them to be dinner.hahaha

The first image was, yes. Those are about the size of my two largest algae eating hermits (this particular species seem to grow unusually large).

"Dinner" may have become the interim tank ruler, lol.