HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Ive been reading on how to give the crabs salt water they need and have a bad feeling i havent been using the right thing. Please let me know. Also how deep should the bowls be? I have a bad feeling mine arent deep enough.

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Apparently, jungle is a salt water brand for freshwater fish and isn't nearly strong enough. Use instant ocean. And bowls should be deep enough for your biggest crab to submerge. Make sure you have a way out for smaller crabs so they don't drown. You can make a craft mesh ramp or have a stone in there. Hope this helps


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This is what i have right now for dishes


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Thank you for your reply. I looked that up and i guess im not sure what im looking for. Do you have a link maybe that i could look at?

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How small are your crabs? Most of us here at HCA use tupperwares.


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Well charlotte is in the bowl if you can see it in the photo. With her shell id guess a little bigger then a quarter? 3 of them are that size but big claw is slightly larger.

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Your bowls are definitely too shallow. I use doubled Tupperware. The fist bowl is buried in the sub and has a layes of marbles in the bottom. The second bowl sits inside the first, has a layer of marbles in bottom, canvas for ramps/access, and holds the water. They both also have bubblers in them. Here is what mine look like. Red for fresh and blue for salt.



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daws409 wrote:Your bowls are definitely too shallow. I use doubled Tupperware. The fist bowl is buried in the sub and has a layes of marbles in the bottom. The second bowl sits inside the first, has a layer of marbles in bottom, canvas for ramps/access, and holds the water. They both also have bubblers in them. Here is what mine look like. Red for fresh and blue for salt.



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Oh wow thank you. I had no idea they needed to be so large and deep! Do they swim in those? I guess i dont fully understand what they do in it. I just thought they drink and kinda drag their shell theough the salt water to store in their shells and move on. Thank you. I am transferrimg them over to a much larger setup and will put larger bowls in for sure.

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Some of mine fully submerge. Others just hang on to the edge. Being able to fully submerge allows them to get the water balance in their shell right. Mine will also clean their shells out in the water bowl. Their toilet per say.

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daws409 wrote:Some of mine fully submerge. Others just hang on to the edge. Being able to fully submerge allows them to get the water balance in their shell right. Mine will also clean their shells out in the water bowl. Their toilet per say.

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Why do you double your tupperwares? I assume it's to minimize damage if one starts to leak. Correct?


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No. The purpose of being doubled is to prevent having to re-dig holes everytime to you change the water. Also prevents less stress on a crab if one has dug down beside the bowl to molt.

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If you're having trouble finding marine salt, try a store wuth a salt water aquarium section. Alternatively, amazon has a variety of brands. Two examples...

This is the instant ocean brand:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005WZVY ... tant+ocean

Red sea brand looks like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009DDN1 ... r+aquarium

Hope that helps somewhat.

You can make pools out of a lot of things... tupperware is cheap & easy. Doubling up containers is a really good idea!

You guys are beyond awesome! Ty so much for your help!

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looks like they covered it Good luck!