Candy Cane Coral Ate My Hermit!

[wyw]

I'm Shocked!

Here I've been feeding these guys little frozen Brine shrimp, Blood worms etc. and today I find 1/4 of a blue legged hermit sticking out of a polyp. It wasn't even a particularly large polyp. I guess I should be feeding them bigger chunks of food.

I wonder, if this little polyp can eat a med. sized hermit what have the larger polyps been eating? And to think I've been blaming the hermit crabs for the mysterious disappearances in the tank all these years!

Wendy

 

[Anonymous]

Wendy, could it have been a molt? I've never heard of candy canes eating critters, and as far as I know mine have been perfect gentlemen.

 

[Mihai]

Molt! There is no way the crab stayed there to be eaten. He's hiding now to harden the new shell.

M.

 

[wyw]

I took a closer look and I don't think so. I see meaty parts sticking out along with a leg and head.

Maybe the coral caught it after it died?

 

[Anonymous]

To me (IME) that pretty much confirms a molt. There is no way that the candy cane fractured the hermit's shell to admit the 'meaty parts' Many times when my scarlets molt they loose a leg or two in the process and it looks like they got ripped in half from the molt remains. I have never los t one to molt so far.

 

[brandon4291]

I really really hate to jump on the bandwagon, but I also go with molt 100% because I have a CBS/leg, claw sticking out of my frogspawn with stringy items (attachment filaments) still waving in the current.

Somehow the shed items got picked up in the current and landed on the polyp.

 

[Anonymous]

molt.

 

[Mihai]

Still molt (I thought I had a mantis shrimp at my first hermit molt too!).
Still later, I thought I had two decorator crabs, one smaller and dead and a new big one that I had no idea where it showed up . These crabs are strange creatures, I'm telling you.

M.

 

[wyw]

I'll trust you that it's a molt. But I'm not getting my fingers close to that guy when he's feeding. I have this vision of the plant from Little Shop of Horrors saying "Feed Me! Feed Me!"

wendy

 

[Len]

A possibility not considered is something else killed the crab and parts of it ended up in/near the Condy.

 

[Fastmarc]

A possibility not considered is something else killed the crab and parts of it ended up in/near the Condy.

True.
I'm pretty sure the candy didn't do it.