Just a stupid crab question. . .

MammaDuck · 06-13-2003, 11:45 AM

I purchased an, as of yet, unidentified crab last month. . . he has been growing very fast, so I went to LFS and got some more shells in varying sizes as possible new homes. Less than a day later he's sporting his new shell. . .

As I am looking at my tank today I see that he's ditched his new digs and returned to his old home. . . of course this decision COULD be based on the fact that yesterday he overbalanced himself and it took nearly ten minutes to right himself. . . I'm sure he could hear me laughing at him from the other side of the glass

Should I worry that none of the shells are good replacements, or let his new selection shells stay?? I have grown attached to this silly crab and don't want him to be homeless, only to become dinner for the evil dam*sel. . .

Casey · 06-13-2003, 12:53 PM

Let him be he must have liked the wallpaper in the old shell better

uurt · 06-13-2003, 01:00 PM

Leave him be, but watch him. He might do what mine did - coopt one of my snails shells while the snail still had use for it

Of course, he did have a large selection of shells to choose from, but nothing was living in them. Nowhe's even bigger, and (Thank god) he leaves the snails alone.

Lee

MammaDuck · 06-13-2003, 02:57 PM

Currently he is the only inhabitant with a shell. . . I don't care for snails much, but am willing to get them when I encounter an algae bloom to help with clean up. . . speaking of which, I set up my FO tank the first weekend in May. . . I have yet to even see a smigde of the stuff. . . sometimes I worry that I am doing something wrong and test my water. . . everything's where it should be. . . guess I'll just wait for the dreaded cycling to occur

Reefer Addict · 06-13-2003, 04:13 PM

This reminds me of a scene I saw in my tank a couple of weeks ago... for some reason, a 'naked' hermit came running out from under the rockwork (I assume his shell had become wedged where he couldn't remove it) and was scurrying about trying to avoid the other hermits who were trying to gang up on it. It finally found a surrogate shell that was about 4 sizes too small and barely covered it's abdomen, much less allow it room to retract if in danger... it was the funniest thing to watch though... it looked like it was wearing a bad toupee.

I finally dug a shell out of my sump that looked like the size it could use and dropped it in next to it... in a flash it found its new home and has been happy ever since.
I think my next project is going to be to gather up the loose Zooanthid polyps that are floating around my sandbed and give a couple of the larger hermits their own little frag attached to their shell.