HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hi folks, I found the HCA forum about two months ago when I obtained my first hermit crab from a family who was not properly informed of the species' requirements when they bought him at a pet show, and I've been lurking here ever since. In this time, I've also added two more hermies to the first one's crabitat; one of them burrowed down completely and hasn't been seen since his second day in the tank, but I do hear him digging under the sand occasionally so I assume he is molting or preparing to molt, while the other one adapted quickly and thrives in his new home.

I feed them a variety of foods such as lightly cooked shrimp, scrambled eggs, egg shells, ground up rolled oats, bits of apple, banana or pear, cooked sweet corn, cooked sweet potato, cooked carrot, dried hibiscus flowers, the very infrequent smidge of peanut butter, shredded coconut, etc. They seem to highly favor the shrimp so I offer up a piece every week or so but I do try to keep a rotation going. Today, for instance, their menu is a quarter slice of kiwi fruit, a tiny piece of shrimp and some shredded coconut, along with a piece of cuttlefish bone that I've recently started keeping in their tank at all times.

Now, the reason why I decided to stop lurking and make this post, is because I ventured into buying a packet of frozen bloodworms (the brand is Ruto Frozen Fish Food) and I want to serve it to my crabs, but I have no idea how to prepare it for them and YouTube only seems to have instructional videos on how to feed aquarium fish. How do you folks - those of you who offer bloodworms or krill or what-have-you in these little frozen cubes - go about thawing and preparing them for your crabs?

Any help is appreciated!

If the cubes are small enough and the crabs are hungry enough, one block in a dish straight into the tank. Otherwise you'll need to cut it or melt and divide it before serving if you don't want waste. It stays good for about 24 hours and then will start smelling like dead crab, so don't be alarmed. Try to not handle the bloodworms directly - many people develop allergies over time, especially if you already react to mosquitoes - so the less direct exposure the less of a chance it'll happen. If you are allergic you'll have tightness when breathing, rashes or itching on the inside of your hands, and/or your nose will start running. Bloodworms were a favorite in my tank and one large crab can clean up a block by themselves if they like it, but I had to stop when my and my husbands allergies got too severe. Frozen mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, and silversides are also usually well received by hermits for more variety.

Thank you for replying! The cubes are big enough, and those two eat far too little, that I'll have to slice off a corner or half of it and keep the rest in the freezer. As for being allergic, I don't think I am but just to be on the safe side, I'll wear disposable powder-free latex gloves while handling the frozen bloodworms and wash my hands afterwards.

So I should just portion off whatever I feel necessary and let it thaw, yes?

Can I do it directly in their food "dish" (a large seashell)? Or will it make too much of a mess as it thaws out and any excess fluids start to leak, in which case a separate container would be best for that whole process?

Yeah, definitely portion it up!

There's really no good way to separate out the liquid unless you pick them out with tweezers after they thaw. It's usually such a small amount that it won't make too much of a mess in a shell. That's actually how I used to do it.

Thank you so much for the pointers! I'm definitely going to try it for their dinner tomorrow, I just hope they don't decide to drag any morsels of food away and make a mess. Cleaning up trails of oats or coconut all over the substrate is more time-consuming than anything else I do for them, including the cooking and thinking up meals, but the little buggers just love it. They even "contaminate" the various food dishes/shells as they clamber over them. At least that way we know they're eating, though.

It's a pretty big tell when a freshly-cooked piece of shrimp suddenly turns green overnight after adding kiwi fruit to the crabitat...