Hermits dying off

[smaug]

I have lost all my big to med hermit crabs over the past few weeks,just lost my big one today.
Nitrates 2ppm
ph 8.0
tank is cycled totally
temp goes a bit high lately at 80 deg
this is all i test for at them moment.
These are just common petco variety hermits.The small red legs seem to be ok for now. Its not the mantis that may or may not be there,its obvious when he kills

[Cliff]

I know that you give all your critters outstanding care, so I would think you could rule out dieses. This only guess on my part, but could they have been outgrowing their shells and could not find another big enough? But that is just a guess and only based on what I have read. I’ve never had these guys in any of my tanks

[cuckoochews]

Are the deceased still in or close to in their shells? I had a blue leg that killed snails for their shells all the time although i would think if a hermit was killing other hermits they would smaller than the attacker... Sorry, guess that was pointless, lol.

[smaug]

Im not so sure Im doing that great a job with the sw tanks Cliff but thanks for the vote of confidence. I dont really miss the big ones to be honest,I was always afraid they would pick at my future corals or eat my polyps. That said I gotta wonder why they arent making it. It could be the lack of bigger shells,maybe not enough food though I think I feed too much. I have never fed the crabs individually with meaty stuff,maybe thats it,I thought they would have more then enough by scavenging.

Yes,they are close to there shells when I find them. Problem is that there were no bigger ones left to kill this last one!

[labnjab]

Hermits are just flat our murderers. They like to rip each other and snails out of their shells just for the heck of it, and never even try the shells on, lol. Our LFS does a group buy on inverts twice a year, and blue legs are always 50 cents each so we always stock up on them because they are great cleaners and actually keep our frag tank and display spotless and diatom free

[smaug]

I am going to get a big group of blue legs at some point. I just noticed this morning that my biggest hermit is still there! Apparently he killed the last one that was close to his size as it was near what I thought was him.

[Hpimichael02]

what shells do you get for these guys??

also the differnt color hermits have different eating habits?

[sheamurai]

Just wanted to mention that not buying them bigger shells to move into does not cause them to die or kill each other. Since my biggest ones were being a nuisance, I stopped buying shells. I have no idea why the larger ones die, but I have only small ones now. I haven't bought any new hermits in two years, and I still have some. Altho I have no idea how many of the original number I still have, I never see more than a few at a time.
Small ones aren't nearly as nasty as the big ones are, so I'm not going to be giving them shells anytime soon, either.

[smaug]

They werent dying,it was just the molts. They look just like dead hermits. In any case,I have removed all the big herms and am slowly feeding the little ones to my mantis

[icefreeze57]

are the herms that I can buy on the boardwalk the same ones I can put in a SW tank? Or are there separate land and SW herms?