Halloween Hermit Crab

Care at a glance

Overview

An efficient scavenger that grazes green hair algae and cyanobacteria and cleans up detritus and leftover meaty food, helping keep rock and substrate tidy. It is peaceful toward fish and corals, but its larger size means it can accidentally topple small frags or loose rockwork while foraging, and like every hermit crab it will attack and evict a snail for its shell if no empty ones are available. Keep it in a tank with secure rockwork and a good stock of empty shells in assorted sizes.

In the wild

Ranges across the Indo-Pacific, including the Red Sea and the Hawaiian Islands, on shallow coral reef and sandy areas down to about 15 metres. It grazes rock and sand by day and night for algae and detritus, carrying a snail shell home as it forages. In the aquarium it wants an established reef with algae growth to pick at and enough open rock and substrate to roam.

Good to know

Ciliopagurus strigatus is a hermit crab in the family Diogenidae, named for the bold orange and white banding across its legs and a deep red body, a pattern that gives it its Halloween-themed common name. It is one of the larger reef hermits kept in the hobby, reaching about 5 cm, and it typically lives in the long, narrow shells of cone snails or similar spindle-shaped shells rather than the rounder shells favored by smaller hermits.

Did you know

Its favored shells are the same tall, narrow, cone-shaped shells that venomous cone snails leave behind, so a Halloween Hermit Crab in the right shell is walking around in what was once one of the ocean's more dangerous snails.

Related species

• 

  Electric Blue Hermit Crab

  Calcinus elegans

  2 in (5 cm)20 gal (75 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)

• 

  Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab

  Paguristes cadenati

  1.6 in (4 cm)11 gal (40 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)

• 

  Scarlet Zebra Hermit Crab

  Calcinus laevimanus

  1.2 in (3 cm)20 gal (75 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)

• 

  Blue-Leg Hermit Crab

  Clibanarius tricolor

  1 in (2.5 cm)11 gal (40 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)
• Mexican Red-Leg Hermit Crab

  Clibanarius digueti

  1 in (2.5 cm)11 gal (40 L)72–81°F (22–27°C)

• 

  Porcelain Anemone Crab

  Neopetrolisthes maculatus

  3 in (7.5 cm)11 gal (40 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)