HCA: Hermit Crab Association

i was wondering how you know this stuff is true that copper sulfate and ethoquin are dangerous and lead to deformed molts. is it scientifically proven. not tryin to disagree but i just wanna make sure the stuff im hearing is true.

I have pics of what I believe it does, and after talking to a few very experienced crab research people and never having this problem after I changed to all natural foods...Im pretty sure its what caused this:

E with severe molt deformity and completely stuck in her exo. She died two days later despite my efforts to free her and keep her fed and watered.



A different E who lost almost all of his legs, he lived for about a month while I fed him and watered him every day. He attempted a molt and never made it out of his exo.


This E after the attempted molt, hes dead in this pic and I have removed all of the exo he was stuck in as I wanted to see what went wrong underneath:


EDIT: Mind you I had these crabs for over a year and they had molted at least 2-3 times during this time. However, the molts were successivly worse, most noticable for the Es.

wow, NarNar, thats really sad....

Yea it is. These two were the reason I tossed out every commerical product I had a couple years ago.

The only time I see problems with Es molting is their first molt after I have bought them from a local store. For example Cookie lost part of one leg her first molt with me, she molted again and its regrown and is now fine.

We have reason to believe that ethoxyquin causes bad molts, but we don’t actually have scientific proof, if that’s what you’re asking for. No peer-reviewed research, but a healthy number of observations pointing us in that direction. Many of take the “rather safe then sorryâ€

When I first started crabbing, I had several PPs. I fed them FMR & Jurrasic Diet. When they started to molt for me, there were all sorts of complications, deformities, and deaths. I lost 7 of my original 12 to bad molts. I switched my guys from the commercial foods to homemade kibbles & fresh foods. I haven't lost another PP to deformities since then. That is proof enough for me.

Like Laura said, its more of a safe than sorry and that natural foods are far better than processed. There is not "hard" proof that the EQ or CopperSulfate did that to my Es, but it seems to be pointing that direction from my experiences with my crabs. Some people dont have problems with their crabs eating commercial foods tho.

I know that exothyquin and copper sulfate are not permitted to be used as a human grade preservative in the US because they cause cancer in laboratory rats (ironically, the pet industry also uses exothyquin and copper sulfate as a preservative in rodent feed! [smilie=crazy.gif] ). Copper sulfate in larger amounts is also used as a pesticide. Since hermit crabs are in the same phylum as insects, hermit crabs are closely related to them.

I also raise crickets to feed my tarantulas. My brother suggested feeding them dog food, so I chucked a few pieces of my dog's kibble in there. A few days later, all but 5 were dead! And those 5 appeared to be dying too. I had about 50 or so in there! I checked the dog food bag and even though I thought I was feeding a high quality food, there was exothyquin and copper sulfate. I have since switched over to something even better without the preservatives. My dog loves his new food and my crickets don't drop like flies when I feed them some of his kibble.

Its not proven, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. All my animals get high quality, homemade and/or all natural preservative free food. I try to eat nonprocessed foods myself too. Which would you rather have--something from a can all the time or something fresh?

I Stopped feeding kibbles to my dogs that contained Ethoxyquin, BHA and BHT in them back in the early 90. Even back then Ethoxyquin was said to cause cancers... and yet they STILL use it in pet foods!

I switched my dogs to a raw natural diet in 1999 and have never regretted it. My 12.5 year old Alaskan Husky is so much healthier than any 12.5 year old I know. And NOONE belives my lab is 8. She looks and acts about 4.

Natural is best

I can’t actually find anything that says ethoxyquin is banned for human consumption. Everything I’ve found says it’s used as a preservative in spices. Can someone point me in the right direction for ethoxyquin research?

Laura_B wrote:I can’t actually find anything that says ethoxyquin is banned for human consumption. Everything I’ve found says it’s used as a preservative in spices. Can someone point me in the right direction for ethoxyquin research?

It appears I got some misinformation about ethoxyquin. It's still used to preserve spices and fruit at much lower doses. Sorry!

Here's an FDA study done on exothyquin in pet foods from 1989:

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ANSWERS/ANS00119.html

but then they revise their answer to say that it does affect dog's livers at the current amounts allowed and the amounts should be lowered:

http://www.fda.gov/cvm/CVM_Updates/dogethox.html

And here's a link to a wiki article on copper sulfate. It can be toxic to fish, which is a concern because unlike fish hermit crabs don't have a liver and so the toxins build up in their system over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... direct=yes

Here's an archived discussion on Ethoxyquin and Copper Sulfate that has some really good info:

Ethoxyquin and Copper Sulfate archived discussion

Tammy from the crabbagepatch has used eq and copper sulfate for years along with other foods.

I am wondering if its not so much the preservatives as the lack of nutrition in the food all together.

I wrote a term paper on pet food, so don't get me started by saying its a complete diet etc. Its not.