shell hopping hermit's baggage?

[Gabriel]

i have had a few hermits climb up the silicone seal in the corner of the tank. also up the side of the back glass where its covered in coraline algae. and of course the go BASE jumping when they reach the top i have only see them drop off twice but they climb up occasionaly. it was funny to see

[random]

they're more hardcore than i expected

[Dragonist]

The only Gulf of Mexico hermit I have climbs up my Air hose connected to my dragon and stay @ the edge of the water for a day or 2 and gets down or I pull him down.

[random]

the main climber here is a thin stripe(?) hermit.
It hasn't stayed up there for more than a day, max. He was sticking one of his claws through the surface of the water... wonder what he thought he'd catch
I've seen him slooowly slide down the cord, then inch his way back up. Guess I missed the BASE jump tho.

[atlee]

I've got a thinstripe hermit too -- I actually set up the tank in the first place to house him when he accidentally came home from the Gulf Coast with us. Mine climbs the silicone seal as well, and you're right, they are entertaining to watch.

Alas, he doesn't do much for algae control, and he tried to eat the turbo snail I added. There's not much information out there on the thinstripes, and what I found said they weren't very aggressive by hermit standards, but mine sure is. Maybe it's because he's quite large (the shell is 3"). I'd love to add some corals, but I suspect he'd bother them.

How large is yours?

[bb0029]

My hermits play magical shells as well. Me and my son get a kick of seeing them swap shells. It is pretty insane to watch. Mine usually do it when the main lights go out for the evening, "dusk".

[random]

bb0029: finally a creature more indecisive than me!

atlee: wow! maybe I don't have a thinstripe, after all. The guy we got the live sand from gave us 5 blue legs and this one. Its shell is ~1 inch, max. (one of the more rounded shells). His longest legs are maybe 3/4 - 1 inch.
Haven't seen him bully the other hermits, but as far as coral: we have a 3" tall (kenya tree?) soft coral that's growing in a big snail shell, & we found him picking at it;he actually managed to squeeze in there WITH the coral, but couldn't make it work & moved back out. I don't think ours does much with algea, either. He may eat vermetid snails sometimes, but that's a guess.

[atlee]

What does yours look like?

Mine's a Clibanarius vittatus, and you can see a photo of him at flic.kr/p/6TxbEM (sorry no link, I lurk too much). I've seen some sites call them "green stripe hermits", but others call them "thinstripe hermits". They're native to the Gulf of Mexico, and are likely the ones you mention having seen on the beach. My kids picked our crab up there while collecting shells, and I didn't check for hitchhikers before coming home. He's a pretty typical size for that species hermit, but he's a LOT bigger than the little dwarf blue-legs and such that you see at the LFS. It makes it that much wilder to see such a big critter climbing that little bead of silicone!

[atlee]

It so happens that I actually got a couple shots of my hermit climbing up the seal today:

flic.kr/p/6TDXVJ
flic.kr/p/6TzWnZ

(Come on, post count!)

[random]

Here's a picture of our hermit. He is much, much smaller than yours, atlee.
I'm going to go do a bit of surfing to try to find out what he is.

[random]

This time I'm positive! (I think...)
I saw a blue leg hermit switch shells, right at the front of the tank, and it was definitely packing something extra. It looked like a little cloud of tiny particles or something, bright green under the actinics, and seemed only partly attached to the hermit (somewhere near/above the 4th pair of legs?).

Is there any way this could be eggs?
Or do our hermits have some sort of weird disease?
or am I just crazy and obsessed?!
(that last question was rhetorical)

It was too fast for me to get a photo of it; I don't know how Hop managed to get such a clear picture.

[schmnr]

Originally Posted by random

ew! The dark side of nature. Not pretty.

There's one in our tank, too. He's started hanging onto the other hermits' shells and harassing them for hours. One of the other blue legs went missing a few days ago, and we suspect that the bully dispatched him.

Speaking of behavior, one hermit we were told is a jade(?) regularly climbs up the corner of the tank (and/or the cord to the pump) and hangs out an inch or less from the surface of the water.

Any one else have 'high-flying hermits'?
and re. bullies, should we intervene, or let nature take its course? The biggest blue leg is almost twice the size of the others; they don't stand a chance. All six were introduced together, but he's grown the most.
plus we want to add to our clean up crew, but I don't them to become an expensive snack for their tankmate.

if you have room through him in your refugium.

[atlee]

He does look like the same species, though -- not that I'm an expert or anything, but he looks like he has the blue eyes and the same coloration. Maybe yours is just a juvenile?

[random]

schmnr, thanks! have to remember that if he ever acts up again...hope there's enough time for us to build 1. Never knew you could keep so much in there!
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atlee, Must be. It does have blue eyes, its stripes seem much paler than the photos I found. But that could be their juvenile colors, right? I'll try to find out how long our fish buddy had it before he gave it to us.

Guess we'll just have to keep an eye on it. maybe it could be a dwarf version? Just don't want it to have fish for a midnight snack.
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Anybody have thoughts on the green goop? from what little I've been able to find, it sounds like maybe they're eggs. This would be a good thing, yes?(no?)

[atlee]

Mine hasn't bothered my fish (neon goby & clownfish) or my peppermint shrimp. When I added the turbo snail, the hermit was on him almost instantly, though. I actually put the hermit in "time out" in a tupperware container of salt water for a few days, until I could get the turbo back to the LFS -- this species is really hardy, and can even survive out of water for several days.

My understanding is they'll eat whatever they can catch, but they're not really fast enough to get hold of fish or mobile inverts. Too bad, because my tank could really use a snail or two to help with the algae right now!