HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I am planning on adding several live potted plants to my crabitat. To make sure the plants are crab-safe, I am going to grow them in a soil I make myself using peat moss, sand, cocofiber, and either vermiculite or perlite. All the other ingredients are safe, but I have no clue on these two.

Thoughts?

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Do you really need these? In a pinch, both EE and large grains of sand/gravel will help aid in water retention and aeration respectively.

Since they are both natural products, I would assume they would both be safe. Perlite is a glass and vermiculite is a mineral.

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I don't know about the safety but they may eat it so if u can't find a definitive answer I wouldn't use it And I think JJ is right, u don't really need it anyways if u are using course sand.

I personally wouldn't use either....
Imo, just because they are natural doesn't make them safe. Just because arsenic is natural doesn't mean we would want to ingest it...right?

i guess i don't need to use it.

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I don't think either are outright harmful, but I still would suggest staying away from them if possible as we don't know the effects and crabs live for a very long time. Things that aren't made for pets can also have been exposed to contaminates, i dealt with that myself with horrible results. Sphagnum moss and coconut chunk coir would do the same type of job and both are definitely crab safe. Check out ABG mix for terrariums, as that is a gold standard for growers and is animal safe. (Maybe not fir based for crabs though.) A sample recipe is here: http://www.dartden.com/viewtopic.php?t=4857

I had my scorpions on potting soil for a bit, but the bags must have been contaminated as two sets of babies stopped eating and died when exposed to it. The adults were all okay. Anyway, it had perlite in it and when I went to feed my largest she missed the cricket and ate a giant hunk of the perlite instead. It must have had the same squish factor and it registered to her as food. I was aghast, thought for sure it would kill her, but nope, still alive and kicking two years later! Still, we are near her natural end of life so even then it didn't worry me as much and I would never have felt comfortable trying it with the hermits who may have decades left.