HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I set up my 90 gal a couple of months ago and haven't spot cleaned it yet. I have a lot of decor in there and they tunnel under a lot of it. So I'm actually thinking of bringing in some roly polys from my yard. And no we don't use any chemicals out there. I have 6 crabs. How many isopods would you recommend? My husband said they will probably multiply. I hate bugs. Will I end up with hundreds?? Will they climb up the side of the tank? I have a couple of little gaps they'd be able to get through.

Hermiesguardian wrote:I set up my 90 gal a couple of months ago and haven't spot cleaned it yet. I have a lot of decor in there and they tunnel under a lot of it. So I'm actually thinking of bringing in some roly polys from my yard. And no we don't use any chemicals out there. I have 6 crabs. How many isopods would you recommend? My husband said they will probably multiply. I hate bugs. Will I end up with hundreds?? Will they climb up the side of the tank? I have a couple of little gaps they'd be able to get through.

They are a great food source for your crabs if they can catch them! Will they multiply? Yes...but it does take them a bit to get established. I have a TON that I have pulled from my tanks. They bred out of control in all of all of my tanks. If conditions are right, and food sources are plentiful they will breed. I use a lot of natural wood and have a lot of leaf litter in my tanks. See how many you can collect from outside - I would probably only throw in about 20. IMO, it would be better to add them as needed then to freak out about them multiplying. Just so you know, when they do breed, the mother carries them under her for a little bit. A 90 gallon has the same square footage as a 75, it just has height. No, isopods cannot climb up glass.

I was given a hundred dwarf white isopods, and now I have close to a thousand in my tank!

Wow. 20? I don't know if I can find 20. Lol. Won't they eat the food from the dishes too?

They'll eat most things.

Once the population gets going, there will be a lot of them. Start with what you can find. They can go through leaf litter pretty quickly too, so you may want to add more than youre used to onc e that happens.

I added 5 Isopods I found out in my yard last summer and once I let them go I haven’t see any since.. I agree 20 is a good number, or at least a dozen, and be sure to have plenty of leaf litter, wood, Moss, etc for them to eat and hide in.