HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I don't know why people avoid it. i've had a sunfish for 6 years, and he eats Cichlid Food with Copper Sulfate in it. I've Had marine hermies for 2-4 years each, and they've been eating food with copper sulfate. Don't get me wrong here, Copper Sulfate is deadly to invertebrates. if copper gets into a saltwater tank with marine invertebrates it immediately kills them all off. It is only deadly when they have direct contact with it IMO. EQ is another thing. it is bad because it's a preservative and bla bla, fish food with no EQ are preferable, but they can still eat it without it killing them and so can marine hermit crabs. and anyway, how do we know that copper sulfate and EQ kills off land hermits? did somebody do a test, of keeping land hermit crabs in an ideal environment and feed them commercial feed with copper sulfate and EQ in it? I think the majority of these deaths that people are talking about doesn't mean the crab was killed because of the commercial food, because most people who use commercial foods use it and nothing else. I think that the most common cause of death is that the crabs aren't given an adequate diet with many different types of food and die of Malnutrition rather than Copper or EQ poisoning. If they were given copper sulfate in a food and say it was toxic in the form it was given to them it wouldn't take 2-4 months of exposure to kill it off. it would die within a couple of hours or to the maximum of a day. 2-4 months is plenty a time when it can die of malnutrition though. I've seen a person pour copper medication for fish into a tank of invertebrates and they all died off within a few hours. thats just IMo.

Would you feed your child a hamburger in it if it had arsenic in it? Even if it was just a tiny bit daily?

When I say that copper sulfate is bad to feed to inverts it is based on research of the compound. You may not have been having problems with it in your tank; good for you. Are all your animals alive? Have you experienced deaths that you don't know what the cause is?

Companies like those corporations know that copper is necessary for crustacean health, but, they are out to make profit which means they are using the cheapest version of copper they can, namely copper sulfate. It is used in mammalian farm animal feeds, but the research shows that copper proteinate and copper carbonate are safer. They just aren't as cheap.

Copper sulfate is known to be a poison to invertebrates. The small amounts in the food could take years to show a negative result, but you are still feeding a compound known to be poisonous to your crabs.

There are plenty of alternatives, such as natural diet, or foods containing less toxic forms. I've been through this argument before with plenty of people that are seemingly more concerned with the inconvenience changing their foods will mean to them, than the health of their animals.

Commercial pet food is almost invariably made with inferior, cheap, even toxic ingredients because the companies are in the business of making money, not preserving your pets' health.

Even if copper sulfate were non-toxic to invertebrates, it is added after the fact to a food that doesn't have any nutritional value in the first place, in order to fill out the empty calories. In a natural food, tahini, spirulina, or other food high in copper, the minerals are bound up to enzymes and microbes that help to digest the food and pass them through the body giving all the health benefits and none of the toxins. When copper sulfate or any other mineral is added on a label, then it is not easily digestible.

Further, copper binds to molecules, so the wrong kind of copper in your animals' diet is eventually going to add up to illness or death.

How much research have you done on this subject? I have extensive experience with natural gardening methods and have intimate knowledge of these chemicals and their effects, and also read research papers on crab biology. I do considerable research before I make a statement about the safety or lack of it in a compund, before I speak on it.

Copper sulfate is a poison. If you want to feed it to your crabs, then know that you are feeding them a toxic compound. That's your choice. But people also have the right to know the truth about a substance and coming on with faulty reasoning - I've fed this to my animals and they're fine so far - is not proof.

Copper sulfate is not added to human food. That should surely tell you something.

There are plenty of types of poisons that do not kill immediately but that build up over time and eventually kill. The one that comes to mind is the one the Julia_Crab mentioned, arsenic.

There are plenty of things that a crab might "live through" without dying. I'm really happy for you that you've had such a healthy tank for so long. That shows that you are a careful caretaker for your animals.

Commercial food isn't necessarily the best diet so much as it is the most convenient one. Unfortunately crabs are really wired for variety and supplementing with other fresh foods or moving to prepared foods all together is a choice that some crabbie owners are making.

In the end, however, the choice is yours.

I know commercial diets aren't neccesarily the best food out there, but for marine hermit crabs, i have no choice. I can't toss a banana or a piece of carrot in the tank, that would kill them faster than even the most unhealthy commercial diet because the water parameters would flux, causing severe stress and death. But i don't feed them just 1 kind of diet. I feed the many commercial diets, i try to pick the best ones on the market. currently they're eating 3 kinds of pellet foods and 2 kinds of flakes.

Have you looked at the products here:

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com

I don't know if they'd have anything for marine hermits or not, but their foods are very high quality.

Brine shrimp are not nutritionally complete. unless they're supplemented, they're essentialy water in the form of a shrmp. i do feed my marines Brine Shrimp with a supplement called Selcon. i also feed them algae called Nori, and and red, green, and blue algae.

For my Marine Hermies I Use Frozen Hikari Krill, frozen Hikari Mysis Shrimp, Flake and Pellet...( The Flake are for my fish. Crabs Being what they are Also eat any that get to the Bottom of the Tank )