My tank has lots of hair algae and other algal/bacterial goodies, just added hermits yesterday, but I was curious if they need some sort of meaty food as well to thrive? I have no fish so there isn't any scraps that they can get to.
Do hermits do better with supplemental feeding?
- Thread starter WallaceGrover
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They'll do just fine and thrive if they have some algae to graze on, but adding a few pellets won't hurt and they might appreciate them but I wouldn't
Hermits are scavengers, so just make sure they have something to eat and they'll be happy.
Also if you do, don't over feed much. A few pellets will be more than enough for them.
If you're trying to get rid of the algae, the hermits won't make a significant dent in helping, so you should consider doing other things. Manual removal and decreasing light intensity and moving the tank away from direct sunlight if it is
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Most hermits are scavengers. For algae, Carribean blue leg hermits which are tiny are great workers. In addition to hermits, add snails such as Astrea - cerith - turbo grazer and trochus and even a trochus and a Pencil urchin
Are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet ?
What is your phosphate level?
Is tank at or near a window?
Start with pulling off as much as you can by hand and reduce white light intensity and number of hours of white lighting, then add the extra cleaners
As guy above said. I would not feed them separately. Apparently mine are mostly algae eaters, because they keep grazing on rock even when I am feeding pellets.
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If you have the algae for them to eat I wouldn’t supplement at all. I just added 10 to my 20G and they are going crazy on the GHA
The tank is a pico 4.8g that's only a month old. The algae doesn't really bother me besides some that's going crazy next to a zoanthid colony that I need to manually remove soon. It does unfortunately get some pretty direct light from the window in the morning though. I adjusted the blinds but I have a lot of houseplants as well.
The crabs were more to get some fauna in there. They're very entertaining to watch! I put a couple pellets in and they scrambled to them.
Problem with sunlight which is the UV and strength of UV from window which penetrates shades and blinds.
If algae does noy bother you, add a couple of astrea snails. Often, I suggest placing a piece of black construction paper from Walmart on the side facing window which drastically reduces algae growth
Only if it has cheese on it or is fried.
Algae needs fuel to grow (nitrates, phosphates, silicates), overtime it'll run out of fuel especially with water changes and be more controllable, only way you can introduce more fuel is when something rots in the tank, such as food or dead crabs.
Sunlight helps algae produce, but if there's no nutrients (imagine taking a plant out of the soil and in a plastic bag with no air for carbon dioxide) then it has nothing to use that energy to produce with.
Otherwise the ocean would've been taken over by bubble algae and outcompeted coral.
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