HCA: Hermit Crab Association

We brought two hermit crabs home from the beach 5 days ago. The crabs have been buried since we built their new home. (one came out for about an hour yesterday, but that's it). They are not eating either (but it's the same food they devoured in the plastic carrier on our way home).

We bought a nice terrarium, we've been monitoring temp and humidity, and providing freshwater, ocean water, and food in separate areas of the tank daily. We provided some entertainment too (climbing sticks and a coconut hut bought from the same store we got them from).

Here is where we went wrong, we mixed calcium-sand with coconut fiber for their substrate. I later learned that calcium sand is bad. And coconut fiber is good only when mixed in a 5:1 ratio. It's currently more like half-half - and we are having trouble with it sticking to them and also managing the humidity. But worse than that is that they went down inside it and didn't come out. We've been keeping it moist by spraying it twice daily.

So...... we have new sand. And we are planing to empty and replace the mixture currently in the terrarium.

But, they are burrowed down under the sand! And we read that you should never unbury a crab.

I don't think it's possible that their molting schedule aligns perfectly with bringing them home. Maybe they are happy down there? Maybe not. They haven't been eating. What should we do? If they are unwell, would we have a way of knowing? If we know they are okay, then we can wait to change out the substrate? But if they are not, is it okay to carefully uncover them, rinse them off, and replace their substrate?

Any advice is much appreciated. We are trying to learn fast here...

Margo

You can use play sand and eco earth in any ratio, don't get stuck on any ratio in particular.
If you have noticed that the calcium sand is sticking to them, it may be enough that it will cause problems when molting. If they have only been down for a few days, it is unlikely that they have started to molt - it is more likely that they are de-stressing. I would dig them up, but be prepared to isolate them just in case they have started the molting process.

Thank you.

Thank you again for the quick response. We successfully changed out the sand and both crabs are doing fine. We feel better and I'm sure they do too! Now, to figure out what to feed them. They don't seem to like the food we bought at the store where we got them.

margova wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 06, 2023 6:46 am

Thank you again for the quick response. We successfully changed out the sand and both crabs are doing fine. We feel better and I'm sure they do too! Now, to figure out what to feed them. They don't seem to like the food we bought at the store where we got them.

I would strongly recommend CrabPax on Esty! My crabs LOVE CrabPax's food mixes and you can buy them in big jars!

Link To CrabPax's Esty Shop:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrabPax

Thank you very much!

margova wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 06, 2023 10:38 am

Thank you very much!

You're very welcome! I hope your crabs enjoy the food as much as mine do!

I'm glad the dig and sub switch went well! Good job!

There are a lot of sellers on Etsy of dried food. It is all pretty similar, and highly marked up compared to what you can buy and feed yourself. If you have the budget and like the convenience, then you could do that. If you're like me and are thrifty about things, you can feed for much less cost. I do buy some dried foods from Canadian Chubby Crab, and have purchased from the Hermit Crab Patch (who are one of the original companies for crab food and supplies) when I had a US mailing address. I'm a vegetarian so buy mostly protein sources from them. Then I dry a bunch of stuff (flowers, leaves), and also feed a bunch of fresh foods (they can eat many of the same things we do including veggies, fruits, grains, nuts, eggs, popcorn, lentils, etc), as well as some stuff from pet stores (cuttle bone, dried turtle food, etc).
Remember that while crabs are small, they don't eat much at all - for the first couple of years, I swear I put in and took out the same food every time. The only way I knew they were eating is that they did not die! LOL!

Thank you! We feel like they aren't eating either. This is good to know. We will keep exploring fruits and veggies too. I put banana out for them yesterday to try.