HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Well...cautious good news, I think. I got him mostly into a shell and felt him pull it and hold on when I lifted him by the shell slowly and carefully (with a spoon in front of him in case he started falling out) to get him to another part of the iso tank, where his exo was. He's currently sitting i...

He actually is still alive and looks perkier this morning, though still not all the way in his shell. He looks like he's munching on something - either his exo or the honey I put in last night.

I will try the suggestion to get him all the way in his shell.

Thanks everyone!

Yep, his exo is right in front of him and I did put some honey in with him, but I'll put it on a qtip near his mouth parts. We don't eat peanut butter, but I have almond butter...would that work?

Photos - you can see the pink crab with the purple leg of the exo. This is after I tried to get him in a shell.

1. What kind of substrate is used in your tank and how deep is it? Sand, 1ft deep - I just did a deep clean and found 7 dead crabs. I believe this guy was molting and was dug up during the clean. He was in a shell, but I just found him about 20 min ago without a shell, exo sloughed off to the side a...

Parts of the bottom sand were soupy and parts were sand castle consistency. I don't have a humidifier or bubblers, but I do wonder now that you say it, if the water bowl is leaking. I noticed last week that the fresh water was really low really fast, but chalked it up to evaporation. I am sure I hav...

Yesterday I noticed a black spot at the bottom of the tank and knew it was a dead crab. I dug down today and it was indeed a dead one. :( I got all the black sand out and a bunch of the surrounding sand (I kept smelling it to see if it didn't smell like death). I got as much as I could but then the ...

LOL! Adjusting their jocks! bwaahaaaa *dies* I caught them on video! At about 13 seconds, I think and then a different one at 2:09ish. http://youtu.be/7Fnvboop0QY And of course both of the crabs in the vid are E's. But the PPs have done it too. So much condensation on the glass. :( So the species do...

wodesorel wrote:It may be a communication thing. I have so many hermits that I can't tell for sure when they do it, but my scorpions do something similar when another scorp gets close. Like some sort of submissive gesture.

Scorpions!?! Awesomeness. Do you have pics somewhere?

LOL...I told my 10 year old about the E's modifying their shells and he says "crab abs of steel." He cracks me up. Nope, no chirping when they twerk, and no other crabs (that I'm aware of) watching. I'll just keep an eye on them. I read the bug info and checked again for bugs on them, this time on m...

We just moved to Houston about 4 months ago. When we moved here, we bought new play sand and it had teeny bugs in it, which I"m assuming are mites. Since then, I've upgraded to a much larger tank and put brand new play sand in it, that was bought from a different store than the first batch. Guess wh...

Where did you get your pillbugs? I have a large crab population and they are messssssy! We have a 55gal tank and I think we have some sort of non-harmful mite population that was in the dirt when we got it, so I'm thinking some buggies might help. Did you just pluck them out of the yard?

They are PPs and Es. Both doing it.

A little background: we moved to Houston, TX from NC about 4ish months ago. During the move, the crabs were in a 30 gallon tank; one died. :( Before that death, we'd only had 1 die in 3+ years, and that one came to us as a rescue. We've added a few more crabs from the local Houston pet stores, all i...

All 8 of mine are PPs.