WARNING! This is not a professional website! I am NOT an expert. Do NOT believe everything on this site.

My Reef Hermit Crabs
Reef Hermit Crab Photos

I wish I had time to write about the various species of dwarf hermit crabs that there are for nano reefs. Instead, I will just tell you about mine.

On 5/6/08, my first hermit crabs arrived. I ordered four of them of four species but they sent two extras. I got two dwarf zebra hermit crabs, two scarlet reef hermit crabs, one dwarf blue leg hermit crabs, and one dwarf yellow tip hermit crab. The two zebra hermits almost never sit still. They drive all over the tank and check out everything, taste everything. Even though they are supposed to be herbivores, they ate the dead Nassarius snails I got and like sinking shrimp pellets. They also like to play musical shells and change them often, sometimes twice or three times a day! The other three species of snails stick to one spot where they slowly eat patches of diatoms and some algae. They are more shy. The dwarf blue leg is the smallest while the scarlet reef crabs are the two biggest.

On 5/20/08, my biggest zebra hermit crab died. He had molted (the skin was next to him). I do not know if the other crabs got him when he was vulnerable, or something else went wrong due to the water chemistry.

Somewhere later that week, I stopped seeing one of the scarlet reef crabs. On 5/30/08, I saw one of the other crabs wearing his shell so I thought that crab died. Around 5/28/08 or so, I did remove what I thought was a shed exoskeleton from the other scarlet reef crab (it seemed to lack meat) but I thought it may have been that poor guy. Then, surprise, on 6/2/08, I saw that missing scarlet reef crab again back in his old shell! So, I have five crabs of four species left. The one tiniest crab must have molted at least once and survived it because that guy who was itty bitty was the one wearing that huge shell that the scarlet reef crab used to have (and somehow got back later)! He is a lot bigger now.

I am sorry that these are bad photos but my camera will not focus on small things. These guys are small!! Some of these photos show multiple animals and may be on more than one page on my site.

Hermit Crabs and Snails - 3 Cerith snails (#1, 2, 3), 2 Margarita snails (#5 &6), 2 Nassarius Vibex snails (#7 & 8), 2 dwarf zebra hermit crabs (#10 & 11), 2 scarlet reef hermit crabs (#12 & 13), 1 dwarf blue leg hermit crab (#4), and 1 dwarf yellow tip hermit crab (#9) in the acclimation bucket when I got them on 5/6/08. None of the snails survived but all of the crabs did.

Hermit Crabs and Snails - close-up of the last photo with the two Margarita snails, one dwarf blue leg hermit crab, one of the scarlet reef hermit crabs, and one of the dwarf zebra hermit crabs.

Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab - close-up of the other one of those from that same photo.

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Dwarf Zebra Hermit Crab on 5/7/08 on the live rock; notice the new shell (one I got new). The black and white legs are the crab. He is on a growth of red coralline algae.

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Two Hermit Crabs - on the left is the dwarf zebra hermit crab, on the right is the scarlet reef hermit crab, 5/31/08.

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From 6/13/08:
Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab to the left of the star polyps.
Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab disguised among the algae.

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These photos are from 6/28/08:
Dwarf Zebra Hermit Crab on 6/28/08, close-up. He is in my favorite shell which was the only small shell to come with the two bags of shells that I bought.
Corals - this is the photo from whence the previous close-up came to give you scale on the hermit crab.

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These two photos from 7/4/08 were of the corals but the little zebra hermit crab was again posing for them:
Animals - starting from the upper left and going clockwise, you can see part of Jose, the big star polyps, the SPS coral, the Duncan LPS coral, the smaller star polyps with coralline algae above them and the little dwarf zebra hermit crab, and Nemo.
Dwarf zebra hermit crab - with the older batch of star polyps.
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Here are photos from Live Aquaria where I ordered my hermit crabs from. If you click on the photo, you can read more information about them. From left to right are the dwarf blue leg hermit crab, dwarf yellow tip hermit crab, dwarf zebra hermit crab, scarlet reef hermit crab, and the dwarf red tip hermit crab which I did not get (they were out of stock at the time so it was not an option). The last photo is of empty snail shells which the crabs need. Mine keep changing their shells!