I have room and multiple compartments enough in my teaching lab tanks for a variety of little critters that don't play well with others, and a
hermit crab like this would be a welcome addition. If you were in the area and wanted to drop it off, I'd be happy to take it (and you could go home with a few frags too if some corals interested you).
Incidentally, though it is entirely possible that all is you are interpreting it, I do wonder whether the truth could be that the snails are not getting enough to eat and are dying due to that (I could imagine this happening in tanks that are ultra-low nutrient systems with little
algae growth), and the hermit might simply be detecting this imminent death and finishing the shails off only slightly earlier than they would have died otherwise. I have rarely known healthy Astrea snails to walk across sand if they can avoid it, so if the hermit is finding them there maybe this is an indication that the snail was weak to start with?
Anyway, if you would like to drop the hermit crab off, send me an e-mail. If you don't have time to stop by that is fine too.
