What are my crabs doing?
 

I have 2 crabs that appear to be bullying a third crab. It started with a chase between the vicitm and the smaller crab. Afterwards, big daddy crab showed up and appears to be holding the victim's shell.

Is this mating behaviour or am i going to lose a crab to crab on crab violence? I've attached a picture, but my Playbook's camera isn't that great so it might be hard to see what's going on.

Thanks
Ren

Hermits always kill other hermits or snails for their shells unfortunately.

I recommend getting additional shells so to give them an option other than killing to get a bigger shell.

We picked up a big bag from Michaels for like $5 and tossed 6 or 8 appropriate sized in the tank and have seen any crab on crab violence since

Hes being evicted

Man, that ****es me off. I got a whole bunch of shells already. My sand bed is covered in shells. Why go after that one? You think the big guy will kill the smaller guy? I'll go pick up more cone shells tomorrow at the LFS. *sigh* This just adds to the ****ty weekend I've been having.
Ren

My sand bed is littered with shells but my hermits ignore them and will always either chase another crab out of its shell or kill a snail for its shell I've lost 5 snails so far this way. If you plan on keeping hermits plan on them taking shells from the living I have yet to see a vacant shell being used as a residence. I will do another snail order this spring to replace my depleted snail population.

I just end up plucking a few shells out for my nieces every few weeks just to clean up the clutter.

they're crabs. only slightly better than your misfit fish eating crab in my opinion.

porcelains are the only crabs welcome in my tanks.

dunno why youre getting upset. i regularly stock my tank with hermits every other week, partly cuz of my mantis, and partly because theyre just pricks. they do use old shells though, see it all the time.

Lol who's getting upset? I was just saying I don't trust any crabs other than porcelains. Spare shells or not they'll kill each other off as well as snails.

Edit: oh maybe you meant the original poster =)