HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Nobody replied to my last post probably because of the title so I changed the title. Here is my original post.
This may seem like a really stupid question, but i have to ask. I'm building a HUGE crabitat and I wanted to simulate nature as closely as possible. I'm making a large salt water pool (roughly 5-7 gal in a 90-120 gal tank (haven't figured out which yet)) that I'm going to convert into a small marine aquarium and need something to keep things clean in there.
HERE'S the question: Can marine hermit crabs get along with terrestrial hermit crabs? another concern I had is that the marines will start out quite a bit smaller than the terrestrials (like pea sized).
My reasoning behind this is that I find snails boring and my terrestrials I plan to get may eat them. I find any hermit crab species to be much more engaging.
If anyone has an answer or advice I would love to hear it. Thank you!

Are you planning on making a sort of nano tank out of the saltwater pond?
If so, and you are planning on putting live rock in the pond, I would think they should be ok, since the MHC's could hide from the LHC's in crevices in the rock, if need be. What type of filter are you planning on using for the pond? How about substrate, live sand?
Also, you will need to be exact as far as specific gravity is concerned if you have any live stock in there.
If you do it right, I would think it will turn out really great!

yes I am planning on making a nano tank. As far as a filter goes I haven't figured that out yet. I am planning on live sand as the substrate and live rock for them to climb on. I don't think I want to go reef although I haven't completely mapped out what I'll be doing with this pond yet, just the crabitat itself. thanks for your input
Do you think the LHCs would be aggressive towards the MHCs?

Land and Marine hermit crabs can get along fine... I observed land and marine hermit crabs in the wild and they did not show any aggression towards one another. IMO a tank in a crabitat would not work out to well since it would be small and very high maintenance, neat idea though.

Hermitcrazy wrote: IMO a tank in a crabitat would not work out to well since it would be small and very high maintenance, neat idea though.

You are right about the maintenance issue. I have had a nano tank for the last three years and it is much harder to keep than the 75 g freshwater tank.
However, I think it could be done if someone wanted to spend a lot of time, work and money on it...

wow ok I'll keep that in mind while planning this thing

zoidberg wrote:wow ok I'll keep that in mind while planning this thing

Maintenance is an issue - but automation is your friend. If I were to try this one of the fist things I would work out is how to keep particulates (like coco-fiber) out of the pool and secondly In would use an auto top off to keep the salinity rock solid for the MHC's AS to going with a reef tank - you could, but you just added photosynthetic organisms and the lighting requirements are made more difficult but an order of magnitude ot two. It is definitely doable - but automation is spendy.

I say that - but there is a part of me that wonders if the terrestrials wouldn't benefit from metal halides or fuller spectrum T5s and such as well. Heck if you use MH bulbs - your daytime heating would easily be covered as well!

Seeing what I see every day when I clean pools - I am not certain that you want that in a live rock filtered set up.

Keith

I have had this sort of set up for a little over a year in my 75 gallon tank, and it works great! The only problem that I've encountered is a recent cyano outbreak due to being ill for about 2 weeks and not being able to do the stringent water changes in the saltwater pool like I normally do. I had to take out my marine hermies and the live rock and keep them in a plastic tub while I scrubbed the pool out and filter it out really well. It is VITAL that you do partial water changes EVERY FEW DAYS!




That's my fresh-water pool on the left and saltwater on the right!

Nano tanks can be really fun and beautiful, but they also take dedication to do correctly! ESPECIALLY if you plan to have any zoas or fish. (I have, thus far, only included MHC's and snails.)

Also, if you want any sort of zoas, keep in mind that you need to get the correct lighting, which is quite expensive. I am currently trying to get some full-spectrum LED lighting to place over my saltwater tank as I'm sure that will help my macroalgae, and therefore keep the cyano from blooming.

I also use the Tom Mini Dive Clean filters and they work wonderfully! I have found they work even better if the filter is changed every couple of weeks.

My hermies actually love crawling completely into both the fresh and saltwater equally, so I'm sure whichever you choose will be great with them!

Good luck!

I am currently trying to get some full-spectrum LED lighting to place over my saltwater tank as I'm sure that will help my macroalgae, and therefore keep the cyano from blooming.

What LED setup are you looking at? There are some very nice DIY parts at nano-tuners.com. SO far I ahve not seen too many LED reef lights that were effective and not fabulously expensive.

Keith

Ya know, I don't really have a 'setup' in mind. I did look around at nano-tuners, and the lights they have available are definitely very expensive. I just found one light-bar of whites/blues on e-bay that would only end up being around $80 US, but at that price, I'm afraid they may not work.

The problem is that, even though I've read lots of descriptions, I'm not a very 'technical' person and I can't tell a good light from bad!

I'm thinking of getting it so I can test it out, though. I'll definitely keep ya posted!