Are Red Tip Hermits Brackish?

[jtipton]

Sorry for all of the questions. I am trying to learn as much as I can about brackish aquaria. I know that blue-legged hermit crabs can be adapted to a brackish environment, but what about their red tip cousins? Are Red Tip Hermits, the same as Red-Legged Hermits? They are part of the same genus, so I suspect that they may adapt as well. However, finding truly brackish species has proven to be a tricky business.

Edit: Asked to clarify between Red Tip and Red Legged

 

[el_vulture619]

I am not to sure about the difference, but I think they just come from different parts of the ocean/coast.

Mixing red legged and blue legged is not good. I have a 10g SW nano, and my blue legged ATE all my red legged crabs!
There was red crab parts all over the place! They ganged up on the reds and ate them! It was like an LA gang fight!! Blue leg crabs are mean, meat eaters, feed them well. I removed all the blues from my SW and they are now in my BW tank.

I have since put reds back in the SW because they do a good job with algae.

 

[nmonks]

No idea. You need to identify hermit crabs to species level before you can safely put them into brackish water. As it happens, Clibanarius tricolor turns out to be a euryhaline species sold widely as a reef creature. Clibanarius africanus will even do perfectly well in freshwater aquaria. But for the others, I cannot say.

I did come across this web site called Snails by mail and they are selling what they say are brackish water hermits. Are these similar to what you're after? At a $1 a piece, certainly worth a flutter.

Cheers, Neale

 

[jtipton]

I see your point about identifying the species. I just keep finding one Clibanarius species after another that lives in brackish environments. Here is another species that I found today.

Clibanarius Longitarsus

Clibinarius seems to be very popular in intertidal zones, and mangrove areas.