Local Hermit Crabs

[mgchan]

Originally posted by mgchan:
My sister-in-law has a place out in Aqueboque (Suffolk County) and in the back by the bay there are snails & hermit crabs. On a whim, I picked up a few this summer and put them into my tank. I'll have to work on identifying what type they are but if they do the same job as the other snails & hermit crabs, why not use them!

Then we'd all have our own local critters that we can use in our tanks!!!

I'll try to take pictures of them and post it.

Here's a pic of it:

 

[Josh]

Keep an eye on it. I picked up a conch along with about 50 blue legs the last time I was in Key West and the damn thing killed about 20 snails and wrecked a lot of coral before I realized who was doing it. It looked like every other conch I've ever bought, but he went from quarter size to about 3 inches long in just 3 months.

 

[mgchan]

Thanks for the advice!

Since I didn't know too much about them, I've been keeping my eye on them. So far they seem to act like the rest of the hermits, just a bit more active. Might be the result of the smaller/lighter shells from the local snails. I'll try to take a shot to show the comparison to the other hermits.

 

[BrianH]

Josh,

Chances are you picked up a whelk, not a conch. Their shells look very similar, but whelks are snail predators while conchs eat algae.

Brian

 

[mgchan]

I found out it's called a Long-clawed Hermit Crab (Pagurus longicarpus). They're fairly common along the east coast and grow up to 1/2" in length & 3/8" wide.

Oh well, they're not unique to the NY region. They may not be colorful, but at least they can be useful in the refugium!