HCA: Hermit Crab Association

MOJAVE / KERN COUNTY Hi all! I'm still around and still have a place for hermit crabs who need a home. I'm in Mojave, California (Kern County) but I can usually drive just about anywhere in the state if a crab needs me. I don't need any more set up tanks but I will take them if you just don't want ...

I adopted a purple pincher yesterday from another board. The family lives in San Jose and would be going to Los Angeles so we met in Gorman. Boss has lived by himself for five years and Geoffrey has done his absolute best to give him everything he needs. He was more than alittle concerned that the o...

Nope. They're like babies and they'll put anything in their mouths...Doesn't matter that it's nasty tasting or anything...They just put it in their mouth because they can.

I agree. Sooner or later it has to happen with hermit crabs where they mate in captivity. And if someone has many species together, it's got to happen that someone interbreeds...It has to happen, logically. We just have to be smart and very very lucky...

Only bathe straws in declorinated salt water. And if you are providing them with a pond to soak in that is salt water, then bathing isn't necessary. they drink the salt water and soak in it too so they should have a container big enough to get into completely in their crabitat. as a matter of fact, ...

I don't think they like or take to being handled too much either...It's just my opinion but we lost every single one last year after we gave the whole crew a time in the playpen while we deep cleaned the tank. They seemed to handle it okay but when we put them back in the cleaned tank all the straws...

He's better off by himself and healing up. He'll be okay by himself for a while. When he's molted and has more limbs it will be safer for him in the other tank. Right now, he needs to have no competition for food or water and rest so he can save his energy to molt...Hopefully he'll do that and grow ...

Years ago I bought a bunch of shells before I knew that painted ones were bad. Two were red/white/blue striped with stars...So I bought them and put them in the tank. Cesar changed into the rwb one and kept it for years. He wasn't forced to move (how could you force them unless you stressed them bad...

I had the straw and the pp attempt to mate. (Female straw, male purple pincher) When it happened, I was told that it never happens and never could produce any offspring because the sex organs won't line up between the species. I wondered about this and why would they try it more than once if they "d...

We had two attempt to mate. They had no simulated anything except a 95 gallon plexiglass tank with play sand, moss pond and climbing cork and grapevines...We have a salt water dish that is deep enough for them to soak in but it was not moving. We had 20 crabs in that tank. It was our biggest purple ...

And chicken bones. They love the chicken bones when we've had fried chicken for dinner. I found someone put a piece of bone in their tank so I tried it after Thanksgiving by putting the turkey leg in the tank. Pretty soon we had three guys on one end and our biggest guy on the other end..All were tr...

Mine go nuts for:

Air popped popcorn
Peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
dried shrimp or krill
dried papaya (Tank especially)

Straws and molting are such peaceful things...that I have to relate: I have a moss pond in the Strawberry tank. It's a shoebox size plastic box with reptile moss in it, moist, of course. Flipper was down in the moss and I hadn't seen him in a bit so I was going to turn the moss and moisten it (by mi...

When I did have my pps and straws in the tank together there wasn't any agressive behavior. I had 15 medium to large crabs in a 95 gallon plexi tank. I introduced a couple more, including a couple more straws, an ecudarian and all heck broke loose...The one ecuadorian attacked my large strawberry an...

I just want to mention that all shells aren't crab worthy...I mean crabs won't even consider a shell that isn't smooth on the inside and without holes. If you have plenty of shells in your tank but still no one has considered switching...Check your shells closely. Make sure the insides are smooth an...