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Has anyone ever successfully kept wild caught mangrove hermies, and if so, how did you go about it?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Hermies = hermit carbs? Or are you talking about how to keep mangrove sprouts?

Most hermit crabs are very undemanding, and require a cycled SW tank and some food source. Eventual upgrade shells are also necessary.

As for mangrove sprouts, I know that a good portion must be out of the salt water, and they need a good light source. I'm prtty sure that it doesn't matter how you keep them up out of the water, but if you want eventual knobbiness that mangroves are known for, then the water level(or the plant itself) should be raised or lowered periodically. At my store we use styrofoam with some holes and plop the suckers in there. I'm not sure this would be the best approach for a permanent setting. I'd think a nice pile-o-rocks would do the trick.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Do you have a species or genus name? More out of curiosity than need, because like Matt said they're mostly pretty similar. They should eat just about anything you offer, sinking pellets work just fine. Hermits will browse sand and rock for extra food as well.

As far as shells go, if you don't know how large the hermits get just keep providing empty shells for each size crab. The nice thing about them is that you can choose what the crabs will move into. I have a hermit right now who occupies a bright orange shell that had a snail in it. You might be able to get free shells from a pet store if you ask nicely enough. I get all mine from work.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

The two inmportant Genera of mangrove inhabiting Hermit Crabs appear to be Diogenes and Clibanarius. these are found in Singapore, and probably in other places too. Clibanarius is the more decorative of the two, having blue striped legs.

As an aside, the Genus Diogenes was named after a Greek philosopher, one of the Cynics (full name Diogenes of Sinope - Wikipedia page here which also includes a nice illustration of the painting of the philosopher by John William Waterhouse), who lived in a barrel. The habit of occupying other mollusc shells probably led to this choice of name.

Make sure that you do not mistake these creatures for Coenobita clavipes, the Land Hermit Crab. This latter creature is so well adapted to life on land that it will actually drown if submerged in water!

Since the members of both Diogenes and Clibanarius are inhabitants of mangrove habitats, chances are they're tolerant of wide variations in salinity. So they should be fairly hardy creatures.

Not sure about what kind of substrate they need, how much immersion in water they require, or whether they require a saltwater paludarium as do the Fiddler Crabs (Genus Uca). But I suspect that they might fare reasonably well in the kind of setup used to keep Mudskippers, which are also mangrove inhabitants.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I believe most if not all hermits are wild caught. Most marine inverts are really hard to breed in an aquarium and I'm pretty sure the place I ordered from collects them out of the wild. I think the blue legged hermits, which I have in my tank, are Clibanarius Tricolor so unless you have a specific species in mind that is different from the usual hermit crabs kept I don't know of anything special they'd need. Saltwater, cycled tank, a few shells of various sizes, and food. They eat just about anything from meaty fish foods and anything that dies in the tank to hair algae and vegetables. They also don't need to leave the water. At least I've never heard they have to and mine haven't been out of the water since I setup the tank.

I ran a search for Australian mangrove hermits, and Clibanarius longitarsus popped up. If this or some other Clibanarius is the hermit in question, you should have no trouble keeping a group. I have two similar species (C. tricolor and C. digueti) and they have proven very easy to keep. No need to have out of water stuff for them to crawl around on, either.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Great I'm not sure if thats the one, the colour looks a bit off, but the shape is right. They are mud brown & very hairy. I think they colour will probablky change after a while in aquaria though.

I caught 3 nice ones in a fish trap the day before we left and I thought it was worth a shot. I brought home enough seawater to cover them in the bottom of the QT tank and have a plastic plant for crawling out on (making do, it will be a mangrove branch shortly), but so far they haven't used it. Currently on sydney beach sand and being dosed to the gills with Cycle (I doubt its effectiveness in SW though, any experiences there?)
I also grabbed some small runner plants, but I'm not sure if the light will be enough for them, will have to see.

I'm planning on doing some rearranging and popping them in a 2' in the next few days, along with the 3 baby somethings (look remarkably gudgeony but sand-coloured) that also came home with them. Thoughts are to have a sand base, find some low-light vegetation and one of those floating turtle platforms, and then run some old green landing next mesh up to it to act like a rope ladder if they want to climb around.

What are my chances of being able to introduce a bit of LR rubble into this setup? Would I be best off collecting anything to add from the same sort of environment?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

OK, now in posession of ye olde bag-o-fake-salt (coralife) and hydrometer and a full day in which to sort out the eventual tank.

1) what is the best way to acclimatise them? (not forgetting I also have 3 goby-like fish in there)

2) is it acceptable to use part synthetic and part natural sea water?

3) As I'm sure you've spotted, i'm chasing my tail here and doing this completely backwards, so in the interim until I get myself a nice filter/skimmer setup, the choice of filtration is somewhat limited. Fluval 2+ or VA300 cannister or sponge or corner or plain airstone?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

If you can drip acclimate the crabs, that's great. Otherwise just setting them in a cup or something and slowly adding tank water should be okay. I didn't drip most of my hermits, just floated their bag in my tank then let them loose.

A mixture of sea and synthetic salt is just fine. Some people freak out about using natural saltwater in a tank, but it's actually better than the fake stuff unless you collect it from a polluted area. It contains microorganisms that can supply filter feeders with food.

I don't know about the legality of collecting live rock from the ocean, but if you can get some from there or a store, it will help you out for filtration. If you buy it from the store, you run the risk of causing a cycle in the tank. Uncured live rock is really bad about this, but the cured stuff won't cause as much of a problem.

I'm not familiar with the canister filter, but those in-tank Fluval filters aren't bad. If the crabs and fish are in a small aquarium, the 2+ should do an adequate job.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Right Ta

Grabbed some quick piccies:



There is a tiny one inside the small cone shell too.


And a badly focussed one of the fish:



For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Wow! Those hermits are way bigger than I thought. It looks like they could eat the fish!

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

They probably could, that was actually why I bought the fish back as I sort of figured they'd have a higher O2 requirement than the crabs and would die in transit, or get a bit seedy and act as good 'settling in' food.

Fortunately they are fast and not too needy in the O2 department.

Question of the night

Are these crabs all about the bling or the size? I put in a bunch of random shells, mainly cockles and pipies, but in amongst it was a large shiny snail shell, easily 4x the size of the largest crab's shell and thick-walled. Within a minute he was sussing it out, within 10 he was inside it. Its WAY too big for him, yet he's dragging it around rather proudly. #2 crab (the larger submissive one) comandeered #1's old shell and #3 (the tiny one) moved on from browns and greys to the same style of shell in yellows and purples. He's strutting too.

Is it a size thing? If I put in more appropriately-sized shells will he trade down or stick with the Hummer-esque shell?

I seriously thought it'd be too big for him to even try

Bad piccie of #1



And a good one of the submissive one (#2)


For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Those shells don't look too big for them IMO, and they probably don't think so either. They are definitely more concerned about the proper size shell rather than the "bling" aspect of it. Don't stress yourself out too much about the right size shells for them. Just make sure there's a few different sizes hanging aroung, and they'll figure out what they need.

BTW, what are you feeding those suckers?

I'm not sure if anyone has said this, but make sure you let any synthetic salt you use "age" with some water movement in a bucket for 24 hrs before you use it.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Hermit crabs will often take over rather large shells. I ordered some tiny baby blue legs online for quite cheap and one took over an old turbo snail shell. He's growing into it but still gets stuck on the rocks every few days.

So far I'm feeding them frozen BS and blackworms (mainly because thats all I had with wiggle factor) but i'm thinking of moving on to parts of frozen prawns and maybe BBS shortly. At the moment I'm a bit more worried about the tank water stability than food.

Suggestions welcome though, this whole thing is completely new to me so I'd appreciate any helpful hints you can give

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Tank has cleared up, filter seems fine, and the gobies are having a ball. There seems to be some sort of crab cheerleading going on, and there was an impolite query by crab #2 to crab #1 about if he could see fit to vacate his ginormous shell, but that seems to have resolved itself

I am exceedingly lucky they are very tolerant critters.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Man I'd love to be able to collect critters from the wild. All we have are deer and they are more likely to destroy a car than to cohabitate with other deer in a fish tank.

That all sounds great, I was going to say there is probably no need for the bbs, you have pretty large crabs, maybe the gobies would go for it though.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Matty, if you fancy collecting some freshwater critters, you could always take a trip to New Jersey (which I gather isn't that far from New York) and head for the Pine Barrens - Axelrod & Burgess ran an article about collecting there in the late 70s in TFH. Not sure what the regulations are, but I suspect if you have a basic fish and game licence for rod fishing you can collect things too.

Now I don't know what the pollution status is with respect to the waters near Poughkeepsie, but that used to be a place (again cited in TFH) where you could collect Lepomis gibbosus, the Pumpkinseed Sunfish. If it hasn't been polluted and eutrophied to death, you could take a squint there too.

I'm a mine of useless information at times.

Mind you, collecting some wild things can be fraught with complications. Certain freshwater clams that are native to North America are NOT a good idea to collect as their larvae, if they breed, are secondarily parasitic on fishes. Even over here in the UK, the world of aquatic invertebrates can harbour some surprises - we have a nice beast that sometimes crops up on ponds called Dolomedes fimbriatus - a spider the size of your hand that walks on water and can pluck a 2 inch fish out from under the surface and eat it. Here is a distribution map for this beastie]http://www.searchnbn.net/gridMap/gridMap.jsp?allDs=1&srchSpKey=NBNSYS0000008831[/link] and [link=here is a nice close up of it]http://www.bioresurs.uu.se/myller/sjo/karrspindel2.htm[/link]. As if that weren't enough, [link=here is a shot of one eating a fish.

Oh, and Callatya, I'm looking forward to more pics of your gobies and hermit crabs.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Sure pretty close, but it's sure not a day trip. I'd say I'm about 10 hrs away from Jersey. NYC on the other hand is pretty close, but I'm in Buffalo. We don't have anything major other than Erie, but that's pretty nasty.

That's a pretty crazy little spider you have there BTW .

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

OK, that is what I have ended up with for the moment.

All are happy and healthy and they do usually spend part of the day boating around on the cork. It isn't terribly efficient though, one has to act as a keel so it doesn't keep flipping over. I considered adding an outrigger but thought it really wasn't a permanent solution anyhow.

Now I've added the silk vine (reptile decor) they perch on tht for part of the day too.

I'd like to add something for them to wander around on, but I'm not sure what. Turtle docks seem hard to come by, and appear to look a tad lousy from underneath. I was considering a fake jetty, but I'm not sure if there are any suitable woods or if epoxy resin, colourings, etc would adversely affect the water. I also considered a toy boat with a trawler net out the back for them to climb up, but its hard to find one that is stable and not garish primary colours.

Ideas appreciated.


Also, would it be OK to add any other fish or possibly some snails? If so, what would you suggest?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett