Herman The Hermit Has Eaten Lenny The Clown

[Seg]

Hi there. Has anyone heard of hermit crabs eating Clown fish. I have woken this morning to find Mr Crab proper going for it with the clown fish. I have no idea how he managed to get his claws on Lenny, but at this moment in time he has nearly finished him off.
I tried to take Lenny off him this morning, but Mr crabs just pulled him inside his shell.

Will this affect my water balance in anyway?

Thanx

 

[CageUK]

I would think the most probable circumstance was that poor little Lenny was either dead or dying and the hermit was just scavenging him. Not pleasant to watch no doubt but simply nature taking it's course.
As far as I'm aware the common Hermits in general are not predatory but there may be other species that can be opportunistic.
RIP Lenny

If there any remains it would be a good idea to remove this just in case you get a small outbreak of cyano but if you have enough scavengers then they would probably clean up quite effectively... and you won't need to feed them

Not a bad idea to do a params check anyway to gauge any effect!

I've lost a couple of fish which just disappeared and had no noticeable effect on the water.

 

[Seg]

Thanks Cage. No definately not pleasant to watch, but as you say natures way.
I will do params check and see whats what. I'm not sure why he has died, he was lookin ok yesterday, but there again, I have added more live rock yesterday and had a move around, so it may be possible that I have stressed him out.....GUTTED!!

Thanx for the advice Cage.

 

[puppyjess123]

POor Lenny RIP.

 

[Seg]

Thanx PuppyJess. He will be missed.

 

[ben1987]

how big was Lenny? what size is the crab?

 

[Seg]

how big was Lenny? what size is the crab?

Hi Ben.

Lenny was only about 1 inch long, and the murderous crab is abit hard to size, but I would say that he is bigger than Lenny was without his shell. If only Lenny could have hung on a few hours longer. Just changed to 130L tank today. Hopefully get a pair of clowns in about 1 to 2 weeks time, gonna let everything settle first. Got a beauty piece of LR yesterday, plenty of paws, holes and even some life on there. I'm not sure what the life is, but as soon as I work out how to post pictures on here, I will put a pic on and maybe someone could ID them for me. Funny little things. sometimes when you go near the tank they close up into a stork then slowly come back out. Buzzin when I saw them.