The Boy got Crabs in Old Town

The Dwarf Red Hermit Crabs (seen on the substrate)

I mentioned before we'd picked up some Dwarf Red Hermit Crabs (Chibanarius digueti) last time we were at the LFS.

I went in about 7 weeks after setting up the tank. To his credit, the owner of my preferred LFS was a little reluctant to sell me much of anything prior to the tank becoming 8 weeks old.  I mostly wanted some assistance with keeping the brown algae off the rocks and substrate...  I'm sure the Damsels are tired of the prolific clouds of marine snow dislodged when I stir the algae into the substrate and lightly scrub the rocks.

He agreed that I was probably close enough to the end of my cycle (if I'm not already through it) to take home some Dwarf Red Hermit Crabs (but no snails just quite yet).

He took me to the tank where they were housed.  They certainly seemed active...they were very busy sifting the crush coal bottom.  They were a buck a piece, and he thought 10 would be a nice number to start with.

We had a quick discussion which allowed him to get to know me a little better.  He started off by mentioning most customers will ask how many crabs can be put in a certain size of tank... I interrupted him to verify its not the tank size that matters, but the amount of work to be done, or at least in this case, the amount of algae available for the crabs.  He was relieved to hear that I understand that perspective, which probably elevated me a notch in his opinion.

Back to the house and I've got to wait on the crabs to acclimate before putting the new Coralife Lunar Aqualite...seemed like an eternity, but this post is about the crabs, not necessarily the light, lol.

After what was probably an overly thorough acclimation, the crabs were ready to be introduced into the tank.  I dropped each one in and they all landed within 6" of each other.  I hurried with the new Aqualite so I could catch every detail.

After less than a minute, all but two of the crabs were already in motion.  About half started hiking.  The other half began to graze in place.  After about 5 minutes all but the two crabs that were motionless had left the drop zone.  Crabs trails of white had already begun to appear behind the grazers, and one special "hiker" was already on top of the highest rock in the tank.

I verified the two motionless crabs were still alive - I could see the antennae twitching, just no leg movement.  To this day (not like it's been years) those two crabs are still my slowest movers.  Granted they are the two smallest crabs in there.

I've also learned, through close scrutiny, that not all the crabs are Dwarf Reds.  At least one of them is a Dwarf White Hermit Crab.

After a few days of watching them, they seemed to take on a slightly different personality than the had in the LFS.  I only watched them a few minutes before purchasing them, but as I said before, they were really, really active.  In my tank, they seem to siesta.  But then it occurred to me:  The LFS doesn't have much algae, so those guys really must have to work for their food.  On the other hand, my tank is like Thanksgiving.  And just like Thanksgiving afternoon, we're all napping with full bellies.

So while the crabs graze upon the rock and substrate, I continue to scrub the algae from the glass.

In a couple weeks, I'll have my snails.  Perhaps even a Chaeto (Chaetomorpha algae) nest of Reefpods as well...