HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I bought some 100% blueberry juice and a pack of cuttlebones and made my own flavored cuttlebones. The hermies just love them! I have two that have been sitting on the chunk for almost two hours eating it. (I always have plain cuttlebone chunks in the tank, so its not like they are calcium deficient as they go thru those once a month).

How to make your own flavored cuttlebone:

Use 100% juice (I used blueberry and am going to use some cranberry)
1. Get a zip lock baggie and pour in about 1 1/2 cups of juice.
2. Place your cuttlebone(s) into the juice, swish it around a bit. You will notice that one side will dye and the other side will not. Try and get the side that is absorbing the juice face down into the juice...the other side will not absorb much juice at all even if its face down in the juice.
3. Let the cuttlebone sit in the juice for about 5 hours.
4. Take the cuttlebone out and set it on a paper towel, which is set on a piece of plastic wrap or a plate (if you dont put something under the paper towel it will dye the counter )
5. Let the cuttlebone dry ~12 hours (that is how long mine took to dry)

I then broke mine in half and put half on the second level and half on the bottom level

Great idea! I'm going to give that a try since mine never seem interested in the cuttlebone.

I might give that a try too. Very creative.

Sounds delicious! I have my cuttlebone soaking as I type. But all I have on hand is mango juice, I hope they like it.

Sounds yummy

That sounds like a yummy treat to me. I love Mango flavored snacks myself...and I'm sure the crabs are less picky than I am...and I am definitely not picky.

That's a great idea! It'd probably work for any juice, right? I have some apple juice in the fridge...

Yea I would think it should work with any juice as the cuttlebone seems pretty porus...it absorbed the blueberry and cranberry juice all the way thru.

Did they like the mango???

Do you just keep your cuttle bone in a food dish or something? I think I'll try that with mine.

I just set it on the sand..they drag it around all over the place.

Awesome idea! I'll have to try this with the next cuttle bone we get...our guys generally ignore the plain one!

does the cuttle bone absorb all or the juice that you put in the bag?

No it only absorbs a small bit of the juice. You could probably get away with using 1/2 a cup of juice for 1 cuttlebone...just make sure the absorbing side is completely submerged.

They LOVED the mango!!! Even my newist addition ULTRALORD is eating it up. I tried to put it in a special dish but they just drug it under the coco hut so it was kinda a waste.