Red hermit crabs

[James227]

Hi-

I lost my red hermit crab this week, who I had for 7 months or so. He was pretty inactive for a few days, and I thought he was molting again, which he had done 6 months ago or so. My nitrates have been at 40 ppm for a couple of months, and I'm wondering if that had anything to do with it. (The nitrates might be a subject for another post; I'm working on reducing them, we'll see).

Could nitrates at that level have caused his demise? Assuming I get the levels lower, I would like to get another crab. He was a family favorite, always climbing the rocks and doing nose dives off of them. Are they compatable with other inverts, specifically cleaner shrimp and maybe sea urchins? These are some other inverts I'm interested in.

Thanks much-

James

[Reef Scooter]

In reference to the nitrates: that level is very high. One of the biggest contributing factors to any marine animal's demise is stress brought on by non-ideal water conditions. The nitrate level would have definitely caused stress.

Please tell us more about your set-up, filtration and what you have in your tank. I noticed that you said your hermit fell off the rocks. Are these live rock? If so how much? One of the contributing factors of high nitrates could be filtration set up or lack there of.

Maybe we can get to the root of the high nitrate problem.

As far as the hermit crab being compatible with other inverts: please let us know if it was a common hermit crab or a scarlet hermit. Most of the time, the concern is if a hermit crab will be compatible with corals.

You won't have a problem with the cleaner shrimp, unless the hermit were to reach extremely large proportions.

[James227]

Wow, I had forgotten about this post. Thanks for replying! :)

Sorry, I should have given more details. I have a 65 gal. Aqua-clear FOWLR, with about 60 lbs of live rock. Wet/dry sump, w/ bio balls, the tank is about 8 1/2 months old. I'm pretty sure the crab was of the scarlet variety; he was about 1 1/2" big. The fish I have are: Blue damsel, yellow tail damsel, yellow tang, purple dottyback, yellow striped maroon clown, rainbow wrasse and a flame angel.

I misspoke about the nitrates - they have been around 20 ppm, not 40, for about 3 months now, I can't seem to get them lower. In that timeframe, I have reduced feeding to once a day (was twice a day), increased water changes from 5 gallons every two weeks to 10 gallons every two weeks. When I do water changes, I also rinse the pre-filter in saltwater, to get any gunk off of it.

That's about all I can think of. If you need any other info, please let me know. I appreciate the help-

James