HCA: Hermit Crab Association

MamaZelly,
I found a whole colony of them between two pieces of rotting wood. When I say colony I mean about 40 or so. They feed of of rotting wood and borough down inside of it.

MamaZelly wrote:I hunt for rollie polies every time we're outside, and so far, we've come up with a grand total of ....6!

All that hunting, and all I have are 6...

Next time we go someplace woodsey, I'm bringing a rubbermaid container with me. I'll be turning over rocks, logs, and sifting through leaf litter until I find what I'm looking for!!


HEY! What about earthworms? Just your regular garden variety dig 'em up in the backyard kind of earthworms?

Bad idea in my opinion.

Earth worms can carry parasites and other nasties. I used some earth from outside that had some small ones in it too put in a tarantula vivarium and the poor spider got infected by Nematodes. Which are worms that that use snails , earth worms etc. for a host. The worms enter through the anus or books lungs of the tarantula and congregate in the mouth area where they eat it alive. The spider sadly died...

While I am not sure if crabs would be effected by this, I would ere on the side of caution and avoid using any type of earth that has had worms in it.

The very things that would destroy all of or gardens just happen to disappear when a use for them is found... I searched my entire yard all afternoon, and how many did I find? 4. And how many escaped? 2. That leaves me with a grand total of 2. I don't see them anymore, they're either hiding or got eaten right away, which is quite possible

Earthworms don't survive the heat in the crabitat, they like it cooler. Redworms, the kind that live in composts, can be used, they love the warmth. I have some in my tank, but i'm not sure they are still alive because I don't see any trace of them, but then the crabs may just eat any worm castings. You need to give them some leaf litter or moss to feed on and they don't survive in sand. They are often sold as fish bait.

Silent Protagonist wrote:
Bad idea in my opinion.

Earth worms can carry parasites and other nasties. I used some earth from outside that had some small ones in it too put in a tarantula vivarium and the poor spider got infected by Nematodes. Which are worms that that use snails , earth worms etc. for a host. The spider sadly died...

Yikes...okay, no earthworms.

We don't have very much leaf litter here...I did find a few more when I went back to the spot that I had previously found them. We have 15 in there now!

The crabitat might be crabproof, but I have escapes rollie pollies all over my house

I crunched one under my bare foot when I got out of bed this morning, and found another in the kitchen.

Anybody else having trouble with escaped rollie pollies??

A vaseline barrier should stop them. They won't survive long, but you can try to offer them a moist piece of cloth to catch them, they may hide under that since they need the humidity to breathe.

Anyone want to see my Roly Poly(I call them Woodbugs) tank? My hermitcam is in there at the moment. Just to mix it up.

I keep them in a 10gallon tank. There are at least 50 adults in there(two different types, rolling and non rolling) and many many babies.

Very cool, I didn't have the patience to hunt them (and I had trouble finding many) but I won 150 of them on Ebay. I'm going to set up a tank of them for my toads (red wiggler too). Can you offer any advice on keeping them?

luvmycrabs wrote:Very cool, I didn't have the patience to hunt them (and I had trouble finding many) but I won 150 of them on Ebay.

Ebay has 'em?!?!?

They need to be kept moist all the time, and they can't have any flat horizontal surfaces because they may fall and not be able to flip over.

For food, they should have cuttlebone available, and plant matter such as moss. They also eat pretty much anything else, including meat. It would also be a good idea to give them a small chunk of cement; they take bits off and eat them, which helps their digestion. A cheap standard food to give them would be pet food.

They don't need a water dish, but spray them a couple times a week so they can get water if needed(or more if you don't give them fresh food).

They can climb up the silicon on the sides of a tank, but duct tape will probably stop them. That's what I use, at least.

Ebay has 'em?!?!? Shocked Shocked Shocked

Ummm Joel.... Ebay has EVERYTHING

luvmycrabs wrote: Ummm Joel.... Ebay has EVERYTHING

Not land hermit crabs, anymore.

now that they've reproduced I probably have a good 100+ in my tank