HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Bathing is a highly debated issue in the hermit crab community. It is apparent now that the best solution is to provide “poolsâ€

I think that was fabulously written, and well thought out. It would be my opinion that this should be added to the beginning of the bathing FAQ.

Excellent post and I couldn't agree more with your opinion. Thanks so much!

When I first began keeping crabs, I noticed more crabs dying of stress (lost limbs, etc) shortly after bath time. I quit giving baths all together and just provided water for them to soak in, and I haven't had that problem ever since.

It is my hope that we can give sound advice without sounding like we're scolding someone or chastising their inexperience. The last thing we need is for new crabbers to go elsewhere because they were treated with disrespect. If you ever see anything questionable on the forums like this, especially with rude behavior, please report the post or PM one of the mods or admins.

Laurie

Thanks for that post! I have long felt the same way, as I noticed extreme stress when I bathed my crabs. I quit almost immediately after that and provided larger and deeper dishes as they grew. Recently I had a mite problem with some new crabs and had to bathe them. They were very stressed out and I felt awful.

I have about 2" deep salt and fresh pools now, and was very interested recently to find both of my baby PPs swimming in the salt pool, and have also seen my small rug and large variabilis swimming at their own will in the pools, completely submerged. I will never force any of my crabs to bathe (unless I'm treating mites).

I want to point out one more thing in keeping with the Stress Coat issue. A friend and I were discussing this at work awhile back. I told him the problems with Stress Coat (including the fact that too much has actually been shown in fish to coat the gill membranes and interfere with breathing; the same could be true to the crabs' modified gill system). I told him I was trying to find a dechlorinator that did not have a slime coat addition in it.

We searched through every product we carried and determined that every one had some sort of replacement coating in it, even if it did not promote it on the package front. I had been using Tetra AquaSafe until I realized that it, too, had some sort of slime coat replenisher.

The closest we found was Amquel which binds chlorine and chloramine in tapwater. However, to have the full benefit of treating water, you need to use it in conjunction with NovAqua to remove heavy metals in water and, you guessed it, NovAqua contains a slime coat replacer!!

So after all this I have just switched to using RO (reverse osmosis) as drinking water for them. I also use it in my saltwater mix and figure that any nutrients/minerals missing from the purified water are made up for in the sea salt mix. After all, hobbyists use RO in our saltwater/reef tanks and it works just fine.

Hope this can help some of you.

is there any way you can find out the amount of slime coating substance in the different kinds of dechlorinators?

Its worth looking into, although I dont know if they list the actual amounts. I use Prime on my goldfish tank and that is the one that I havent checked on, so I will look at that one when I get home.

I was really surprised when I found out that every conditioner includes that. I wish they wouldn't!

Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion. I do think crab care is evolving just in the time I've been a member here. I've seen a shift toward trying to provide more natural conditions, the in-tank pools and less bathing being one of those gradual shifts.

On the topic of dechlorinators, I want to share what it says on the brand I'm now using, I really think it does not have anything for slime coat.

Marineland Labs
Bio-Safe Tap Water Detoxifier

BioSafe is the fist step to make tap water safe for fish. It detoxifies ammonia and eliminates chlorine and chloramine.

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Critical Care Information: BIO_safe is compatible with ammonia test kits that use salicylate reagents. Use of kits with Nessler reagents will result in a false positive for ammonia. Use in combination with BIO-Coat and BIO-Spira when establishing a new aquarium, and with every water change of 59% or more.

Dr. Timothy A. Hoanec
Chief Science Officer, Marineland Labs

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Principal Ingredients: Sodium hydroxymethane sulfinic acid.

So I think they sell a separate product for slime coat. I think I'll see what's on their web-site.

http://www.marinelandlabs.com/products/mllabs.asp

Yes, they sell BIO-Coat for slime coat enhancement, as part of a 3-step process for conditioning water for fish, so BIO-Safe is only to detoxify the water.

Dion I answered you elsewhere but I'm in agreement with you and totally onboard with changing our advice to newbies.

Can we have this pinned or copy his first post here into the Bathing FAQ. This is too good to get lost. I think I'll be changing to his recomendations immediately.

Thanks,

TS

Very well thought out, and very well writien.

Great well written post! I tottally agree. I have stopped bathing my hermits , because I also found it stresses them too much.

Dion, Great post. In keeping with this thought about bathing, what are your suggestions for introducing new crabbies.. I have had 4 new guys in ISO for about 3 months (since before the hurricane).. I hate to bathe them and am scared to put them in the main tank without doing so??

an occasional dip is not going to be setrimental to a crabs welfare. Regular bathing however might be. If bathing is necessary, which it is generally a good idea, as crabs, as far as we as a community knows, crabs identify colony members by smell, so a communnity bath when introducing new members is usually a good idea.

I would say go ahead and dunk them all in some salt water. Once in a while is not going to kill them.

intersting argument, and for the time being, seems to be sound as well. Do you have a published written account of daily LHC behavior or forraging behavior? IF so I would like to read it. Or perhaps you have a firsthand account? I am not trying to void your argument here, merely looking for infomration that has so far eluded me.

Oh very good post Dionysianexile! Well written.

I also wish we knew more about how the crabs live naturally, how active they are... I'm sure the info will come with time. as someone else pointed out this site has come a long way in providing good information.

keep up the good work!