HCA: Hermit Crab Association

If you end up needing to, cleaning the tank out and washing/sterilizing everything in it will slow the springtails down considerably. It likely won't prevent them from returning, but hopefully would reduce numbers to where she won't notice. Thank you, I will try. They’ve been there for over a year ...

You should tell your grandmother that the springtails are already in your home whether you have crabs or not. They just happen to be attracted to warm moist places, so they are attracted to the crabitat. There's no way no get rid of them unless you spray harmful chemicals by an exterminator in your...

I know springtails are good for hermit crabs but my grandmother is going to make me get rid of my crabs if I don’t get rid of them. How do you do that? I can’t find any ways. I tried vinegar before and redoing tank but still here. What else can I do?

This may sound dumb, but maybe try putting in shells that look similar? One of my crabs will only put on green turbos with similar patterns. He was only in a different color once and he changed within 2 days. He only really likes the green ones.

I had my 55g for years and never changed the substrate. I had live plants in it, so that would have been particularly annoying to do. With enough substrate, and with a mix of Eco Earth and sand, and especially if you have good diggers that stir the soil up fairly regularly, theoretically it can bec...

I handle my crabs a bit too. I’ll change their food and redecorate the tank and if they climb on my hand I let them. One of my crabs, Blue, climbed on my hand and I put his old shell on my hand to see how big his difference was and he changed shells on my hand! I was shocked.

Not at all! It’s normal for hermit crabs, especially when you first get them to hide for the first few weeks. If they are digging then they are probably going to molt. If you don’t know about molting there is a care sheet on here but I don’t know how to attach it. If they are molting they can be und...

Congratulations! Welcome to HCA!

I use Flukers Super Scrub

My crabs love to destroy their tank. I added some sea urchins and curiosity cubes and small things they can push around and they stopped destroying things they needed as much. As far as food and shells though, they just love to make a mess!

I’ve never heard of an injury causing a molt to be longer, but I do know that if a crab passes away while they’re under, there isn’t really a smell. I believe I did see someone here say around the 8 month or like year-ish mark it may be worrisome enough to slowly and gently sweep some substrate asi...

I’ve had my 3 bigger hermit crabs for about a year and a half now and the crab I am very worried about is Ruby. She’s a smaller crab with a shell size just under an inch and so her molts have never taken too long. They have always been between a month and two months. I have a camera that is attached...

These are 100% springtails and not mites. They travel anywhere they can find food sources - which sometimes include dirty crabs. You may have been looking at a surprise mold explosion, which is why there are suddenly so many in your tank, they eat mold and keep problems under control. Try limiting ...

I have had mites for a few weeks now in the crab tank. I’ve had my crabs for over a year and have never had a problem with them until they showed up. I thought they would go away but they are everywhere including on the crabs. I know at least one of them hate the mites and will try to get them off h...

Usually I make my crab and tortoise water with Prime up in advance, but I've used Prime water for them right away too. When I do my fish tank water change, I fill the bathtub and add prime, wait a min or two, then start pumping that water into my aquarium. It's always worked well for me. [emoji846]...