HCA: Hermit Crab Association

They are the cutest little things! I am sitting here on break at work plotting how to get my hands on some of these babies!!! ( once they're on land of course!)
Happy 3 week birthday little ones!!!!

lasjdfLjsdgfsLDJFlsdjFLkjsljgsijklfslDfjlSfd

Words cannot express how exciting this is!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amazing! You are doing great. This is a MIRACLE! Congrats! Can't wait to see how they keep growing and taking those first "hermit baby" steps into a shell and into the "shore". It will happen, keep your faith, keep going.

wow, the pics and video are amazing! They are really starting to look like little crabs

According to the hermit crab patch, getting to the stage they are in now takes 40-60 days or something like that. They seem to be going through the stages quicker. It is fascinating. =) Plus they seem to get cuter in every picture. I love the video of them swimming superman style. So cute!

The 40-60 days might be old info, what's great about all these babies is we have alot of new info now
Gahhh! Superman crabs! They're absolutely adorable they look just like teeny tiny hermi crabs, and you have so many left! I can't get over how cute they are

YOU.... ARE.... MY.... HERO.....

Wow!!!! So awesome!

RockyGurly wrote:The 40-60 days might be old info, what's great about all these babies is we have alot of new info now

I believe that's going off an old study where only a handful made it to this stage, and only one ever made it wearing a shell but died since it was unable to move said shell. That would have been 20 to 30 days until glaucothoe stage, and then another 31 days that the lone survivor was observed trapped underwater.

That study also did not take into account ammonia levels or even mention how much food was provided. I noticed that it never mentioned a color change in the zoea until that final stage when it took a shell. These guys changed color a long time ago. Water quality and food quality are huge in getting young to survive.

I'm guessing that wolf's hard work , sterile manufactured sea water, and lots of provided food is what made the difference and allowed them to grow quicker than in the laboratory study.

I do think that there will be abdominal curing before they are ready to take shells, but I doubt it will be a month from now - maybe only a week or two, judging by how fast they've made it this far.

This is true =) I am glad about this new information. These little guys have a great start at life. Maybe more will survive than in the wild due to their conditions. The new information will hopefully help a captive breeding program. Out of curiosity, can there be hybrid hermit crabs? I guess if they are different species, that technically means they are separated by their inability to reproduce together, but do we know anything about hermits?

I think there's been talk about crosses, but I haven't sen any real evidence other than just stories. If somebody out there has any real stuff, I'd like to see it, though!

Also, update. This morning, I saw no superman crabs. But during the day, I saw one live one. It's 3:30pm, and now I can't find any. Survivorship must be really low for this stage. Still have stage 4's and 5's swimming around, though. Lot's of trouble molting into glaucothoe- half molted dead ones are common on the bottom.

Just curious, have you given any thought to what you will do with them when they get bigger? I'm assuming you could end up with 50+ viable adults. It would be so hard to adopt them out from getting so attached. Can you do another big tank?

My husband has a "no more crab tanks" policy going, but he said he would make an exception if we had baby crabs to house. I doubt I would get more than about 10-30 per batch if ever, and I would put them in a 10 or 20 gallon until they got large enough and move them into a 40 gallon (they will need lots of molting room) and/or sell them. If I knew they would be going to good homes where people will care for them for their whole lives, I wouldn't have a problem parting with them. But certainly I will keep a few for myself! When we get a house, we have plans for an indoor greenhouse crabitat, so they will have plenty of room when they get bigger.

I have a very strong feeling I won't be getting any to adult form this year. I just have that feeling, you know? It's the same as when you have a sick pet or something, and you just know it's dying, not just normal sick. I have that same feeling that they are all doomed pretty much. Not to be a downer! It's just the way it feels. I'm ok with it. I got much farther than I expected I would.

Just no luck at all with these glaucothoe. I think their diet is younger siblings!! They don't eat the brine shrimps. But they just die after a day. I don't know what to do about it. I feel like there is something extra I am supposed to be doing for them!! It's stressing me out.

I'm so sorry that a lot are not making it through this stage
At what point do they start to go on land?

Ok, so I hope this will help wode, and future baby mamma's. The shell in the photo has an opening of exactly 2mm. The baby is a dead glaucothoe. I think 2mm is the absolute max opening size of these babies.


Here are a few photos I took last night.





I don't know when they go onto land. I think they stay glaucothoes for like 2-3 weeks or something. I just put shells in the bottom and a ramp going up to a sandbox, so I hope they just do their thing in their own time.