New crabs.

[galsipjr]

Hello. I am new to this form but need some major help. I did something I don't normally do and bought a pet without research first as I caved into my daughter wishes for a hermit crab. The local pet store had them on sale with the whole setup included. After getting home did a quick setup and called it good. Then my wife stated looking at the form and noticed what we were sold was junk. A 10 gallon tank, small log hide, tiny water dish, just enough sand to cover the bottom, and pellets for food. I quickly took the crabs out and added economy earth to the sand and moistened it up. Added a large (maybe to big but it was all I had) water dish with salt water and some carrots for food. Also put a 25w blue daylight on to raise the temp. I am going back to the pet store tonight to get what I need to make them happy but not sure what to get. Any help would be appreciated. Also one of the crabs instantly started to burrow once I put the echo earth in with the sand. So I'm not sure how much I can change things if it is going molt. Thanks.

[galsipjr]

First pic is what the store sold us. Second is her crab burrowing. Third is current set up.

[soilentgringa]

Hi and welcome to HCA. Follow this link and read the care guides for your new little buddy! Hermit crabs are social creatures and live in quite large colonies in their natural habitat, so you'll want to get some friends for your new pet.
viewtopic.php?t=92457
Wrap that screen lid in plastic wrap for now and grab some gauges for heat/humidity. A minimum temp of about 80 and 80 percent humidity is good for purple pinchers (most commonly sold in U.S.)

[galsipjr]

Thanks for the info. I just want to make all my pets happy. A little mad at myself for not doing the research first like I do with my reptiles but I really hey mad at pet stores as they tell you the wrong way to take care of animals and sell people the wrong stuff. It is sad at how many people are hurting their pets and don't even know it because of the false info from the pet store.

[galsipjr]

So I redid the tank. Ceramic heater for temp. Coconut background for humidity. New fresh water and salt water area's. Also added dried coconut, dried shrimp, and pellets for food. Bought one more crab for a total of 3.

Any thoughts on what I could improve on. I want them to be happy. Thanks.

[soilentgringa]

You will need at least 3 extra shells per crab. Purple Pinchers like round openings like magpies, turbos, and some murexes. You can purchase these at the Hermit Crab Patch website, for the size crabs you have THCP will have great prices. You can also look in the craft section at your local hobby stores like JoAnn or Michaels. Ditch the sponges, they don't help with anything and just harbor bacteria. You can put fake plants, plastic craft mesh, or shells in the pools so they can climb out. Hermit crab pellets usually aren't so great for them, but you can feed them for free really with scraps from prepping your own meals, or buy mixes from the Hermit Crab Patch or Hermit Crab Addiction or any other good maker of the noms for hermies. I will try to link them all below but I'm on my cell so we will see how it works. They also like to climb and a piece or two of cholla wood or a cork log or piece of mopani would be fun for them. A lot of users stick suction cups to the sides of their tats and hang vines. In the DIY section there are lots of amazing pics of setups.

[soilentgringa]

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[kornchaser]

Also, adding on to soilentgringa, you need at lease six inches of substate for them to molt properly. Salt water needs to be a fish variety so they get the necessary minerals needed for their exoskeleton not specialized hermit variety, instant ocean is what most of us use. The water dechlorinater you use to make their water safe needs to say it treats "chlorine, chloramines, heavy metals, and ammonia". Moss helps with humidity more than the climbing mat does and light fixtures usually bring it down, you really should get a hygrometer to make sure humidity doesn't reach below 75% (the recommended minimum).
Also before you buy shells, post pictures of your crabs so we can all figure out species since each species of land hermit crab has a different taste in shells.


Mommy of 10 PP babies:
Poseidon (Sid), Toby, Matty, Junior, Aries, Kaylee, Turbo, Adrian, Pepper and Flower. RIP Octavius & Fred

[Amiller2850]

We did the same thing for our son last fall at the Mall of America crab kiosk. Now we have 8 hermits. My son has been keeping up with new updates needed for the crabitat. You probably didn't realize hermit crabs can live up to 40 years in captivity! We had no idea! We have since purchased food and shells from Hermitcrabpatch.com and shells from Deltona. We also did a shell swap with someone from this site. It's fun and my son has turned it into his hobby. Take good care of the hermits and enjoy them!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[alalsip]

Well, we usually research before we buy.... The one time we don't, it bites us! That'll teach us We now have two of our the hermits that have buried themselves. Right next to each other! What do we do? We want to increase the amount of substrate and bath them but we don't want to disturb them either. Also, if they are molting, what do we do? Do we leave them in the tank with the other hermit? One of our hermits is larger then the other two. Will this be ok? Sorry for all the questions, but my head is spinning with all the bad info galsipjr and I got.

[alalsip]

Never mind! They came out a little bit ago. We are going to get some more sand now so we can add more substrate. We have enough coconut fiber, just need more sand. We dunked them all and took pics. They are definitely not PP!

Here are our babies

Meet Yui

And this is Stacy

And last but not least, Crabby!

So, what kind of hermits did we get and what set up will work the best? Thank you for all your help! Can't believe we messed up this bad

We have a ceramic heater - temps at 74-71 right now. Although we just had the top off to bathe them. Temp was at 78 before that.

Humidity is at 53, but we just got the thermometer/hydrometer so it's still coming up.

We have two thermometer/hydrometers calibrating right now so we will swap them out when they are finished to make sure we're getting correct readings.

I'm thinking I like the coconut mat only because it seems to be adding to the humidity. If we end up getting an uth, we can put it behind the mat to boost humidity plus it'll boost heat - if it's needed. We don't have room for a moss pit, but once tanks are on sale at petco!

Thank you so much for your advice. We just want happy healthy pets

[Gail]

Those are Ecuadorians, commonly just called E's. viewtopic.php?f=51&t=92454

[soilentgringa]

Never mind! They came out a little bit ago. We are going to get some more sand now so we can add more substrate. We have enough coconut fiber, just need more sand. We dunked them all and took pics. They are definitely not PP!

Here are our babies

Meet Yui

And this is Stacy

And last but not least, Crabby!

So, what kind of hermits did we get and what set up will work the best? Thank you for all your help! Can't believe we messed up this bad

We have a ceramic heater - temps at 74-71 right now. Although we just had the top off to bathe them. Temp was at 78 before that.

Humidity is at 53, but we just got the thermometer/hydrometer so it's still coming up.

We have two thermometer/hydrometers calibrating right now so we will swap them out when they are finished to make sure we're getting correct readings.

I'm thinking I like the coconut mat only because it seems to be adding to the humidity. If we end up getting an uth, we can put it behind the mat to boost humidity plus it'll boost heat - if it's needed. We don't have room for a moss pit, but once tanks are on sale at petco!

Thank you so much for your advice. We just want happy healthy pets

E's need temps between 80 and 90. Did you calibrate your hygrometer? I will link instructions below. You need to boost that humidity. Prolonged exposure to drier air causes gill damage. Most crabbers agree that E's need a minimum of 40g and deep substrate like up to 12", because of their activity and tunneling. It is not necessary to bathe your crabs. (Unless it is an emergency like mites OR you just got them and are introducing them to the tat OR they just came up from molting and are being attacked) It can cause them undue stress. Definitely read the care sheets and adjust your conditions accordingly!

[soilentgringa]

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[alalsip]

We are in the middle of calibrating two of the thermometers - they are in separate plastic bags with wet salt per the posts. We bought three because we have a snake we want to monitor better, we are getting a bearded dragon once the set up is complete (waiting on a uvb light and I'm building a good hide), and now our hermit crabs. Once one of the two thermometers are done calibrating, we will swap them out of the crabs home. At least we have a vague idea of what's going on in there right now until calibration is fine.

Currently we only have a 10 gallon, but we will upgrade as soon as petco has a sale on them.

We just got our crabs so that's why we did the bath.

We are working on the conditions as you can see from our posts. This is the first pets that we have bought that we didn't research. Totally our bad, but we are trying to improve their conditions slowly as we can get the stuff we need. It's been very difficult to find some things, like shells We have them on order.

Thank you for letting us know what kind of hermies we have, that will definitely help. Once we up the substrate, we will see what the heat and humidity look like. I'm sure that in itself will help immensely.