HCA: Hermit Crab Association

hello. ive been at this hermit crab owning for a year and a couple of months. i have a 29 gallon. A little under half the tank is filled with play sand mix coconut fiber (although the sand is a little fine). I am providing lots of hiding spaces with 100watt light bulb on the tank. I change this over to a night time 75watt heat light throughout the night. I spray my tank more than 2 times a day and I spray it good (im shamed to admit that i slack sometimes.) I give them salt water and regular water. They have a rotating diet of food protein/veggies/fruits/etc.(i feed them every other day.) now i have 4. My longest owned (one year) and second oldest is Lego. My oldest and owned for 3 1/2 months, Bart. My two youngest hermit crabs are new, ive only owned them for 1 month, Dudley and Fanta. Bart needed to molt but hasn’t. Lego last molted in november of 2020.
Heres the problem. When i moved them over to there new 29 gallon, upgraded from a 20, i got new sand which was a little finer than the previously owned however its mixed with a lot of coconut fiber. when i first put Bart and Lego down in the new tank, that next following week they buried themselves. Lego is extremely active. Barr is a big guy, barely eats but walks around all the time. Maybe they went to molt? That was in the beginning of November of 2021. I waited and waited and decided to get two more hermit crabs. Dudley was amazed with how big his new home was and was active all night. He buried himself to sleep that morning, came back up that next night then buried himself again. He hasnt returned. I got another hermit crab a week later, Fanta was really happy that night i brought him home, ate for than half of a small lettuce leaf. Climbing all over, was excited. That night he literally disappeared without a trace. That was the beginning of this month, January and im writing this on the 28th. Im so worried that im something is wrong?? Maybe molting is taking a while, maybe the light is too hot, i dont know but im trying my hardest to wait this out but im getting more and more anxious when i find no trace of any of my 4 hermit crabs. Im worried that the sand is the problem but i dont know. please help, i love my hermit crabs and its break me to loose another. I put a fat juicy strawberry in the tank to hopefully lure them out but it didn’t work. i would love it so much for advice, thank you.

it sounds like they’re molting! don’t ever dig a hermie up it’s very stressful. i read on here that one user had a hermie buried for 8 months before it finished molting. some hermies just take a while. usually when you get new hermies you acclimate them. i would next time maybe use ur old 20 gallon tank to use the (PSS?) acclimation process. it’s like 1 inch of sand, everything they need, and no hiding spaces so they get used to being out. you can watch it on Crab Central Station’s channel on youtube she makes a lot of great vids to follow i use her a lot. hopefully they’ll come out soon!! i hope this helped somehow (:

this is actually so cool because this morning Bart came up. You dont know how much relief i feel. thank you so much for the response.

averyanne wrote:i would next time maybe use ur old 20 gallon tank to use the (PSS?) acclimation process. it’s like 1 inch of sand, everything they need, and no hiding spaces so they get used to being out. you can watch it on Crab Central Station’s channel on youtube she makes a lot of great vids to follow i use her a lot. (:

The PPS method has very little merit. It’s based on emaciation procedures used by vets but vets raise heat over hours, not days, and humidity is raised right away.

Additionally, crabs seldom are emaciated since even the worst setups still provide food and water.

In most cases it’s putting off the molt that stresses new crabs the most, and risk of PPS is significantly reduced once they’ve had their first molt.


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When I read your original post I thought you had more than 4 crabs in your 29g. Regardless, there will be times they are all down for some period of time. It's just the nature of keeping them.

I have two 29g setups with 3 crabs in each. I have yet to see more than 1 or 2 up at a time in each setup, but I've only been at it since Sept 2021. The food and water will often go (seemingly) untouched between changes.

I've read that heatlamps and incandescent bulbs can work, but I think many of us use heat pads taped to the outside/back of our tanks (ultratherms and others) and I use LED strip lights plugged into lamp timers for 12hrs/day for lighting.

thank you for the response! i have had a hermit crab pass away while molting because he came with a deformed shell. so im a little nervous when it hits that 2 month mark. thank you all for the reassurance!!

JoeHermits wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:45 am

The PPS method has very little merit. It’s based on emaciation procedures used by vets but vets raise heat over hours, not days, and humidity is raised right away.

Additionally, crabs seldom are emaciated since even the worst setups still provide food and water.

In most cases it’s putting off the molt that stresses new crabs the most, and risk of PPS is significantly reduced once they’ve had their first molt.


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oh that’s interesting!! i myself did not do that method and 4/5 of my hermies have passed. i got them from petsmart and have only had them for 2-3 months but conditions are all right. i’ve been trying to troubleshoot so thank you for that. what would be the best way to introduce crabs to a new environment?

Putting them right in so they can molt right away.

Sorry about your deceased crabs. Pet store crabs are seldom in good health.


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