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My hermit crab population consisted of four large male red legs, one female red leg, and one little female blue leg. I've had the red legs since last November and the blue leg is over two years old. The tank is 50g.
I made a rather gruesome discovery a few days ago finding one of the male red leg hermit crabs still alive in his shell but with no legs, the legs all scattered around him. I thought at the time perhaps a molt gone wrong or maybe he tangled with my pistol shrimp. Either way, a pretty crappy way to go.
Fast forward to yesterday. One of the boys had just molted and suddenly got dog piled by the other two males, and wouldn't you know, they started ripping his legs off! They got both his claws before I could get them separated.
I do have a number of extra shells in the tank but it is possible they are reaching the upper limit of the sizes I have available. The thing is, they didn't take the other crab's shell, they left him for dead with no legs, so it wouldn't seem it was necessarily shell related. They also didn't eat him so it wouldn't seem to be hunger and I do spot feed them a few times a week.
The question is, are hermits territorial and can there be issues when the males outnumber the females? These guys have grown to be quite big, using shells with 0.7" openings. I have more shells on the way just in case but I'm wondering if I might need to take one or more of these guys to the LFS if shells aren't really the issue.
For the record, Mr Crabby-No-Claws is in an acclimation box, active and climbing around on some rubble while munching on pellets and mysis. Hopefully he molts again before too long so he can have his claws back! Poor guy.
I made a rather gruesome discovery a few days ago finding one of the male red leg hermit crabs still alive in his shell but with no legs, the legs all scattered around him. I thought at the time perhaps a molt gone wrong or maybe he tangled with my pistol shrimp. Either way, a pretty crappy way to go.
Fast forward to yesterday. One of the boys had just molted and suddenly got dog piled by the other two males, and wouldn't you know, they started ripping his legs off! They got both his claws before I could get them separated.
I do have a number of extra shells in the tank but it is possible they are reaching the upper limit of the sizes I have available. The thing is, they didn't take the other crab's shell, they left him for dead with no legs, so it wouldn't seem it was necessarily shell related. They also didn't eat him so it wouldn't seem to be hunger and I do spot feed them a few times a week.
The question is, are hermits territorial and can there be issues when the males outnumber the females? These guys have grown to be quite big, using shells with 0.7" openings. I have more shells on the way just in case but I'm wondering if I might need to take one or more of these guys to the LFS if shells aren't really the issue.
For the record, Mr Crabby-No-Claws is in an acclimation box, active and climbing around on some rubble while munching on pellets and mysis. Hopefully he molts again before too long so he can have his claws back! Poor guy.
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