HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hey all. Just a few days ago I brought home 2 rescues. I didn't want to post about them until I got some pics. They were kept previously in a tank with eco earth sub, about 3 inches in my estimation, not sure if they had access to fresh and msw but I know they couldn't submerge in the water they had, there were heat lamps but humidity and temp are unknown but i think its safe to assume it was extremely dry since there was a mesh lid, eating mostly pellets. Then they were kept for an unknown length of time in different housing, probably plastic storage bin, without any supplemental heat. When I picked them up they were handed off to me in a small mesh critter carrier with fir chips as sub. They were both active when I got them, one was a nice red color despite his sub premium conditions and the other was a pale tan. I dunked them in tank water and added them right in to my tat.

I'm worried about the pale one. I can see just a little bit of him, he's in a coconut hide, and it looks like he is upside down. He is still moving. I THINK he is still in a shell. I can tell there's another crab in there with him.

Should I go in there and remove the hide to get a better look at what's going on or should I just wait and see for now?

My tank is 44 gals, 9" sub eco earth/play sand, never gets colder than 79* but usually more like 82, 85* at warmest heated with 2 uths and a supplemental black light, been having trouble with my hydrometer lately but the top has an acrylic sheet over it and I mist WELL every day, 2 fully submersible pools, no sponges, dechlorinated 1 fresh 1 msw, loads of hiding spots, lots of shells, tons of sea veggies, animal proteins, fruits and veggies every day, no fumes recently, total of 5 crabs now (3 original and the 2 newbies), all medium sized.

Sorry I didn't bother with the actual form but I think I included all pertinent info.

I included the best pic I could get.

ROSIEonFIRE wrote:Hey all. Just a few days ago I brought home 2 rescues. I didn't want to post about them until I got some pics. They were kept previously in a tank with eco earth sub, about 3 inches in my estimation, not sure if they had access to fresh and msw but I know they couldn't submerge in the water they had, there were heat lamps but humidity and temp are unknown but i think its safe to assume it was extremely dry since there was a mesh lid, eating mostly pellets. Then they were kept for an unknown length of time in different housing, probably plastic storage bin, without any supplemental heat. When I picked them up they were handed off to me in a small mesh critter carrier with fir chips as sub. They were both active when I got them, one was a nice red color despite his sub premium conditions and the other was a pale tan. I dunked them in tank water and added them right in to my tat.

I'm worried about the pale one. I can see just a little bit of him, he's in a coconut hide, and it looks like he is upside down. He is still moving. I THINK he is still in a shell. I can tell there's another crab in there with him.

Should I go in there and remove the hide to get a better look at what's going on or should I just wait and see for now?

My tank is 44 gals, 9" sub eco earth/play sand, never gets colder than 79* but usually more like 82, 85* at warmest heated with 2 uths and a supplemental black light, been having trouble with my hydrometer lately but the top has an acrylic sheet over it and I mist WELL every day, 2 fully submersible pools, no sponges, dechlorinated 1 fresh 1 msw, loads of hiding spots, lots of shells, tons of sea veggies, animal proteins, fruits and veggies every day, no fumes recently, total of 5 crabs now (3 original and the 2 newbies), all medium sized.

Sorry I didn't bother with the actual form but I think I included all pertinent info.

I included the best pic I could get.

I recently had a crab to that on a corck hide. I was worried he was going to molt. So i tapes a thick bit of paper over the hole to make it dark. When the room was silent for a while and dark i looked under and saw he had moved a shell down with him. The next morning he was out and mosy of the hole was filled. I would keep your eyes on him and try and calibrate your gages.

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Haha actually in my anxiety I just ripped apart my whole tat and checked under the hide to find my new kid happily shelled, moving, with all its limbs. Phew what a relief!!

And re the hygrometer I think I just need a new one. I bought a really cheap one originally and it seems like it is not actually capable of holding a coil. I adjusted it when I got it and then noticed a week later it was reading like 40% humidity which I knew wasn't possible in my tank and tested it again and of course it was COMPLETELY out of whack. Open to suggestions About brands tho

My big guy sits upside down all the time in various places around the tank. weirdos lol

You can actually see in the picture that there is another crab on top of him. (Look at big pincher and leg) They were probably just establishing dominance amongst the tank.

Yeah I was afraid there was some canabalism happening but clearly just run of the mill crab stuff the irony is I was hoping that they would be happy to have some more crab buddies and they were actually interacting fairly peacefully which is what I had hoped for.