1-Year Crab Owner, New Member: My Hermit Crab Story!
Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2019 6:22 pm
Hello, fellow hermit crab enthusiasts! I've owned hermit crabs for about 1 year and 3 months, but only joined the site yesterday, so I figured I'd give a bit of an introduction. 
I've come across this site plenty of times while doing research and finally decided to join the community. May as well, considering I'm always here, anyway! Especially during this time, as I'm currently prepping a 75g upgrade, from their current 20g long. (I'm out of work sick today and have spent most of the day reading different threads on here.
)
My girlfriend and I knew we wanted to get hermit crabs and took a trip last year to Hampton Beach in order to buy shells, coral, and other material to start off with, but ultimately fell victim to the beach shops where hermit crabs cling to rusty cages, with no food or water provided. We didn't want to help the businesses, but also knew the slim chances of all of these poor things making it out alive or even going to decent homes, so we purchased three of them. We later found another one in a painted shell floating in the ocean. That one was missing two or three legs, so was a bit clumsy, but she got around regardless. One of the ones we purchased was also missing a leg or two.
Given the fact that we weren't fully prepared, we let them enjoy the sand and tide pools for a bit, also offering them fresh fruit we bought at the shops, before going home and temporarily setting them up in a 10g. Within the week we transferred them to my spare 20g long that my beardie had lived in when he was small, but unfortunately one of the crabs we bought from the shop didn't make it very long after the move.
Since then, we've rescued a few more (whether from customers surrendering theirs to the pet store I work at, to my friends not being able to care for theirs anymore), and thus it's officially time for an upgrade. So far we've only got the substrate in and a glass lid on top, so we've still got quite a ways to go before it's even close to being ready for them. But who knew owning hermit crabs would be such a wild adventure? I'm very happy to have them and am super excited to get to know this site and the other members more.
I've grown to be very passionate about these little creatures, so to see a site full of others just the same is thrilling.
I've come across this site plenty of times while doing research and finally decided to join the community. May as well, considering I'm always here, anyway! Especially during this time, as I'm currently prepping a 75g upgrade, from their current 20g long. (I'm out of work sick today and have spent most of the day reading different threads on here.
)My girlfriend and I knew we wanted to get hermit crabs and took a trip last year to Hampton Beach in order to buy shells, coral, and other material to start off with, but ultimately fell victim to the beach shops where hermit crabs cling to rusty cages, with no food or water provided. We didn't want to help the businesses, but also knew the slim chances of all of these poor things making it out alive or even going to decent homes, so we purchased three of them. We later found another one in a painted shell floating in the ocean. That one was missing two or three legs, so was a bit clumsy, but she got around regardless. One of the ones we purchased was also missing a leg or two.
Given the fact that we weren't fully prepared, we let them enjoy the sand and tide pools for a bit, also offering them fresh fruit we bought at the shops, before going home and temporarily setting them up in a 10g. Within the week we transferred them to my spare 20g long that my beardie had lived in when he was small, but unfortunately one of the crabs we bought from the shop didn't make it very long after the move.
Since then, we've rescued a few more (whether from customers surrendering theirs to the pet store I work at, to my friends not being able to care for theirs anymore), and thus it's officially time for an upgrade. So far we've only got the substrate in and a glass lid on top, so we've still got quite a ways to go before it's even close to being ready for them. But who knew owning hermit crabs would be such a wild adventure? I'm very happy to have them and am super excited to get to know this site and the other members more.
I've grown to be very passionate about these little creatures, so to see a site full of others just the same is thrilling.
Just in time too. She was clinging to life and wasn't very active at first. We suspected it was probably someone thinking they were doing her good by buying and then releasing her.
