My Maroon hermit is killing my urchin.

[DoINeedAName?]

I have a maroon hermit crab (I believe that is what he is) and a pincushion urchin in the same tank. My urchin is very dear to me and the crab is killing the urchin. He will go up to the urchin and rip his small tentacles and lots of spines off. I stop this whenever I see it, but my urchin has already lost a lot of spines and tentacles. I can not get rid of either and do not wish to injure the crab (which people have told me to do, but that’s just messed up) I am trying to keep them separate, but they are both living creatures that will move when they want. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[ying yang]

I bought a beautiful 3 inch halloween hermit and this little bugger was ripping off and eating my tuxedo urchins spines and tentacles so pushed him off and target fed him some mysis and the nassarious snails smelt the food and rose up from the sand and one went to tje halloween hermit and hermit flipped it over and started eating it so flicked snail away and ended up getting stuck on the urchin and had to put hermit in sump but he started eating the silicone so put him in a breeder box and back to the lfs it went.
So if ypu have a sump put hermit in there.
You got 2 choices remove hermit or dont but if he continually doing it,you cant watch tank 24/ 7 to save urchin so if you a sump put him in there,otherwise as you wont get rid off him you say then you just got to live with it.
Try target feed hermit food everytime you feed fish so if he eating urchin because he hungry hopefully if you feed him he leaves urchin alone but crabs are opportunstic so if come across something they can kill or eat if possible but other than put in sump i cant give anymore suggestions as most sensible thing to do is split them up

 

[DoINeedAName?]

I bought a beautiful 3 inch halloween hermit and this little bugger was ripping off and eating my tuxedo urchins spines and tentacles so pushed him off and target fed him some mysis and the nassarious snails smelt the food and rose up from the sand and one went to tje halloween hermit and hermit flipped it over and started eating it so flicked snail away and ended up getting stuck on the urchin and had to put hermit in sump but he started eating the silicone so put him in a breeder box and back to the lfs it went.
So if ypu have a sump put hermit in there.
You got 2 choices remove hermit or dont but if he continually doing it,you cant watch tank 24/ 7 to save urchin so if you a sump put him in there,otherwise as you wont get rid off him you say then you just got to live with it.
Try target feed hermit food everytime you feed fish so if he eating urchin because he hungry hopefully if you feed him he leaves urchin alone but crabs are opportunstic so if come across something they can kill or eat if possible but other than put in sump i cant give anymore suggestions as most sensible thing to do is split them up

I do not have a sump. Thinking about a separate tank for him.

 

[ying yang]

I do not have a sump. Thinking about a separate tank for him.

Yeah could set up another tank.thats another option

 

[Tired]

Put the hermit in a breeder/isolation box for now (a small box with holes for circulation, hung on the side of the tank), to keep the urchin safe while you figure out what to do. You could give one of them away.

 

[Cell]

Rehome the crab. Or try target feeding the crab.

 

[jt8791]

Hermit crabs seem to be more headache than they are worth typically, the urchin will do much more work keeping the tank clean without predation. Hermit crabs are notorious for picking each other and snails off left and right, guess urchins are on their hit list as well.

 

[Tired]

Scarlet reef hermits are pretty chill, aside from occasionally flipping small items over looking for food underneath. They won't kill snails unless they're really hungry or have absolutely no shells to change into. They don't do much for cleaning, unless you want a few bits of food picked up, but I like watching them.