HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I give my crabbies 15 - 30 different foods 3 times a week. Small portions in 3 - 4 dishes around the tank. They get fruit, veggies, leaf litter, calciums, animals, seafoods, sea plants, nuts, seeds, insects, beans and poop ( bat, chicken and worm). Am I over feeding?
I have 17 crabs in 2 tanks, a 30 gallon and a 55 gallon. They range in sizes from very large to the size of a quarter.

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I can't answer your question but I wanted to know, how many are in each tank?

That’s hard to say. Are the crabs eating most of it or are the leftovers piling up?


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I love your question bc I do the same thing. I hope a lot of people respond to this to get an idea what everyone else does. I like to offer a lot to make sure they get what they want and need.

I give maybe 5- 10 different foods, usually twice a week if using dried. I change it more often when giving fresh.

Most of the foods we're devoured over night! I have 5 crabs in the 30 gallon and they were all in the wheels this morning. I have 4 up in the 55. 11 of the crabs were rescues or adopted. They went down in January. I'm not sure if all of them made it through the molt. Some have come up, but it's only 3 or 4 at a time. Some have come up for a week and went back down. Most of them never had substrate and now they have 12", so they may just be tunneling. There's no way to know and I won't go digging. Everyone seems happy and healthy and get along with each other.
Sometimes they plow through the foods and I have to refill the next day. Other times, it seems they don't eat at all. Oh crabbies are the wild unknown!

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Sounds to me like your feeding schedule works just fine.


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Xenocrab wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:26 am

Most of the foods we're devoured over night! I have 5 crabs in the 30 gallon and they were all in the wheels this morning. I have 4 up in the 55. 11 of the crabs were rescues or adopted. They went down in January. I'm not sure if all of them made it through the molt. Some have come up, but it's only 3 or 4 at a time. Some have come up for a week and went back down. Most of them never had substrate and now they have 12", so they may just be tunneling. There's no way to know and I won't go digging. Everyone seems happy and healthy and get along with each other.
Sometimes they plow through the foods and I have to refill the next day. Other times, it seems they don't eat at all. Oh crabbies are the wild unknown!

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I have 8 in my 90 gal and I think 6 in my 40 gal breeder. So even though it seems crowded, it's really not.

It depends with my crabs, but normally I feed them three to five types of foods per night on average, but sometimes I get a little excited and offer well over ten or more foods per night. I have two crabitats with twelve crabs between the two.

Today I 29 foods. They devoured all the cane sugar, then went for bee pollen, raw organic honey and carrots. I gave a bowl of leaf litter and they have been taking turns munching that. I love when they go for the foods minutes after I put the dishes in the tank!

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I put all my food in 1 dish and change it depending on when they get moldy. i always take them out at least every other day, but strawberries tend to mold overnight. also, i recomend keeping the food near water because hermit crabs cant smell unless they are near water. its true.

Is it possible to overfeed, or do they know when to stop eating?

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Right now I'm rotating between 5 mixes, each w 5 or more different ingredients, and I try to put just enough in their dish so that there's a little bit left over in the morning but not too much. This way I know no one went hungry but also it's not a lot of waste. I find that my crabs seem to lose all interest in food left for more than a couple days.

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Scarletfire wrote:Is it possible to overfeed, or do they know when to stop eating?

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They know when to stop. Hermit crabs tend to seek out specific nutrients when needed and will stop eating when those nutrients are obtained.


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