HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Since protein is a primary ingredient in foods vital to crab health, I am wondering what everyone uses as their primary protein source?

I use frozen krill, unpeeled with heads/tails attached. I put 4-5 krill in the food dish every night and each morning all of the krill is gone. However, someone keeps taking 1 or 2 krill and burying it next to the salt water dish. No hermits are buried there so I'm not sure why the krill keep ending up under the sand there.

I'm using Hakari brand frozen krill but was wondering if anyone using freeze dried.

I use freeze dried krill. I grind it up and add it to the hermit-crabs.com recipe. I do offer it whole sometimes too. Other than that mostly egg, unseasoned chicken, fish, shrimp.

Hmmm...initially it all sounds good, but I checked the ingredients, presuming that this is the same stuff you are using:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... catid=9061

Ingredients: krill, water, vitamin B12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride (source of vitamin B6), l-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (stabilized vitamin C), riboflavin, thiamine mononitrate, biotin, choline chloride, folic acid, pantothenic acid, inositol, niacin.

I don't know what to recommend. Hopefully it is all safe for land hermit crab use, but I hope one of the more experienced keepers (such as JediMasterThrash, NarNar, Blaze88, etc.) can verify the safety of the chemical additives to use with the little hermies.

That's the stuff... I keep the 4oz flat packs in the freezer. I thaw approx 1 oz in the fridge once a week, the next day the krill are added to the crabitat to the 2nd level feeding dish while the liquids and small particles are added to one of my nano-reefs for the inverts living there.

I'm no expert, but I have to say I'd be worried about all the preservatives in that. I use that San Francisco Bay Brand of frozen krill you can get at Petco. The only thing listed in the ingredients is Krill.

I use the same. It's just freeze dried krill, nothing added. My crabs love it. Speaking of which, I need to pick up some more.

hermiegirl wrote:It's just freeze dried krill, nothing added.

mine too.

Agreen wrote: I'm using Hakari brand frozen krill but was wondering if anyone using freeze dried.

Garden variety dried krill, baby shrimp, and bloodworms. Tried the frozen, didn't have much luck. Now with the fresh shrimp.

You're probably right about the additives. Will dedicate the current frozen krill for the reef tanks and will try the freeze dried.

Okie wrote:I'm no expert, but I have to say I'd be worried about all the preservatives in that.

I don't see a lot of hard core preservatives in there. Lots of polysylabic terms, but nothing that the crabs won't get in any other part of a well varied diet.

Ingredients:
Krill a mixture of thousands of chemicals which, when put together in a certain way makes a small decapod that is one of the basic building blocks of the oceanic food system.
Water: H2O, lovely stuff, I wouldn’t even try to live live without it.
Vitamin B12 supplement: B vitamin, water soluble, generally non-toxic when taken orally
Pyridoxine hydrochloride (source of vitamin B6) B vitamin not a preservative.
l-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (stabilized vitamin C), Can be used as a preservative.
Riboflavin, Vitamin B2
Thiamine mononitrate, Vitamin B1
Biotin, Vitamin B7
Choline chloride: Not strictly a vitamin but placed in the vitamin B complex group historically
Folic acid Vitamin B9
Pantothenic acid B5
Inositol Used to be B8, but it is no longer considered a B vitamin.
Niacin Vitamin B3

It seems to me that someone took some frozen krill and added a smidgeon of vitamin B complex. Probably because some fish are known to contain a thiaminase which, when the fish is thawed, degrades the thiamin levels of the food and can cause clinical signs. As a result I suspect that a fair number of ocean based foodstuffs get a shot of thiamin or B-complex “just to be on the safe side.â€

Agreen wrote:You're probably right about the additives. Will dedicate the current frozen krill for the reef tanks and will try the freeze dried.

If it is not safe for a scavenger that is known to dine at human landfills in the tropics, why would you relegate it to feeding the delicate inverts that are commonly found in a reef tank? I am not following the logic, cnidarians and other reef tank inhabitants can be quite delicate.

Me, I would feed it to the crabs and the reef tank.

Keith

the krill's exo is also an excellent source of calcium which they always need.

I bought some tiny frozen shrimp (intended for salads and such) and will sometime put a couple in their food dish. I think I'll look for the krill, though, as it seems like a more complete food for crabs, with the exo, head, etc. still attached. Mine also like canned tuna. Can this hurt them? It's just tuna meat in water (or sometimes olive oil).

The only way canned tuna could possibly hurt a crab is if you're worried about the chemicals from the can leeching out into the food.

The danger is BPA, which is a chemical used in plastic bottles and canned food. I'm not sure how dangerous it is, but I always avoid canned foods with the crabs because of it.

It's been a couple weeks since I switched from frozen krill to freeze dried. It is definitely easier to store. The only difference is the crabs are not burying the freeze dried like they did the frozen, and the tank is less stinky now.

Maybe they didn't like the smell either and kept trying to dispose of it?
hehe