Hermit - Reef Safe?

Hi All, I am suspecting that the hermits I have may not be reef safe. While I have only witnessed one chomp on a coral I have walked up to the tank to see shriveled up coral with a hermit nearby looking very guilty!

I've attached a picture of one.

Thanks!

 

I always make a rule for my tank. If I got a bad feeling about, into the sump it goes.

edit: also some good reef safe hermits are zebra hermits! my favorite so far and they're pretty good on both hair and bubble algea. Also gotta love the one big claw

 

I've never had a problem. I have a couple big ones that look just like that. I feed my tank 2x per day though. So as long as they get food scraps I guess they're happy. I think they may have killed small snails in the past but hard to tell.

 

That is a thin stripe hermit crab. NOT reef safe. They get huge.

All crabs are opportunistic though. The only crabs I have in my tank (that I'm aware of) are the smooth acro crabs.

 

no crabs of any sort...i find that most crabs will mess with snails and i prefer snails to crabs.

 

Now Im wondering if I should take mine out lol My snails disappear over time but I just thought they die off.

 

Do you have extra shells to distract the hermits? A lfs here has bulk cerith shells he gets for this reason. I buy like 25 of them and take out the smaller ones and replace them with slightly larger ones every so often. my guys leave my snails alone. only reseason I end up with dead snails and hermits is cause of my tiger pistol shrimp likes to drag them to his lil cave and kill them

 

They're good in sumps or large FOWLR tanks with predators that would normally eat smaller hermits.

 

I do.. I got a bag off eBay years ago.. plenty laying around in there. I'll be ordering from reef cleaners soon so I think jus snails this time. Maybe another fuzzy cheaton.

 

I love chitons!!

Personally I'll always do only snail set ups.