We went to the fair on August 12 of this year. You know this story. lol We came home with Hermit Jeff.
Poor Jeff spent the night in an empty spare 6.5 gallon aquarium with the chinese food container he came home in.
I stayed up late reading. The next day we had substrate, play sand from Home Depot, two water bowls, a hydrometer, food, salt water mix, everything that Petland had to offer. (Petland... I know... Choices here are limited.) And Cute Face and Tamatoa, because we didn't want Jeff to be sad and lonely.
Success! Jeff, Cute Face, and Tamatoa appear to be friendly with one another. Sand and coconut substrate mixed with dechlorinated water to "castle" consistency. Dechlorinated water in bowl on left, salt water in bowl on right. Caverns under bowls for hiding. I took the sponges out, because apparently they're not needed and harbor bacteria. There is sand tracked into the water again and no drowned hermies, so apparently it's fine?
I found a piece of coral in our old fish tank supplies, so I boiled it and it went in too. Because if I had tiny pointy feet, I'd want something with tiny holes to walk on. I project. It's a thing.
They liked it! But they were really bad at not falling off, and I read that falling can kill them, so I buried it down pretty deep. Now they don't fall as far and I can stop helicopter hermie-mom'ing.
The humidity stays pretty good at 70% - 80% during the day. It gets higher at night but it drops pretty quick when I open the tank to change their food in the morning. When it looks low I spray dechlorinated water on the sand. I don't understand how land animals can have gills or how high humidity substitutes for being underwater, but I'm trying to work with it. They are in the hottest room in the house with an air temp of around mid-70's. These little dudes are super active! They scuttle all over the place and wave their little antennae and do what I assume is crabby things!
They can eat people food?! THIS IS SO COOL!!!! They love scrambled eggs and apples. They do not love bell peppers, raisins, or spinach. Grilled chicken seems to be approved. We'll try tuna next time we eat it. THEY ARE SO FUN TO FEED!
They also get powdered commercial hermit crab food because I don't think I'm feeding them right and they need to eat a balanced diet. They don't seem to like it much, but I'm stubborn and will keep putting it in with their other food.
I switched from the tupperware lid to boiled egg shell pieces as their food bowls, since they can eat it for calcium and I can throw it away and just give them a new one every day. Fewer dishes for the win!
They're way over-crowded. So we swapped the kiddo's fish out of the 10-gallon and now I can use that tank for the hermies! Not much of an upgrade, but an upgrade. Money is tight, big tanks are expensive, setting up what we have was no joke. We'll get there eventually.
Except now I can only find one. Cute Face and Jeff are just gone. Shell and all. Just... Gone.
There is no way they got out. I didn't get so far as getting anything for them to climb, and the tank is smooth plastic. The lid is tight enough to keep the humidity super high. Also, I'm terrified they'll fall and die since they do not seem to be particularly graceful creatures, so their setup is pretty flat.
The only place they could go is down, into the substrate. They aren't very big, and it's a lot of sand. I didn't measure, but it is plenty deep enough for them to have disappeared down there.
They've been there a really long time, like two or three weeks. Tamatoa is still up and moving most days, but even he disappears sometimes. I stalk them late at night, since they're nocturnal.Tamatoa is the only one who comes out. He eats and makes a mess of getting sand in the water bowls so I know he uses them both.
I desperately want to change them into a bigger tank with more room and an under-tank heater since it's starting to get cooler at night, but I'm scared to do anything right now. I spray the sand in the entire enclosure with dechlorinated water once a day or so when I take the water bowls out, but I'm afraid to do anything else. Tamatoa seems fine, but I thought the other two were fine too.
I know we need shells for them. I'm working on it. Apparently we also need a plastic hamster wheel? I have to be honest and say that I don't understand that at all.
Can someone, please, tell me that I didn't kill our brand new babies and that I'm over-reacting? I really did try to do everything I could to make them happy. We only had them like a week or two, so from what I read I'm assuming it's a two-crab molt but it feels way too early for that.
For what it's worth, I use a plastic spoon to very gently clean up whatever looks like waste from the top of the sand and the tank smells surprisingly pleasant. Not really like the beach, but sort of humid and happy and like whatever I fed them the night before.
I'm sorry for the long post, but look at their tiny trusting faces! I got emotionally attached really fast and I worry for the missing babies.
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You sound like your off to a great start with your shelled babies except for the pellet food. A lot of the pellet foods have ingredients that are toxic to them. Keep checking the safe food list and feed them the fresh stuff your feeding them, the egg shell food dishes is a great idea! Here is a link to all the care guides you need 
The hamster wheel is great bc they walk a lot in the wild and no matter how big our tanks are, they’ll never get to do all the walking they would in the wild. Having the wheel gives them the opportunity to do that when they figure it out and they’ll all climb on and have fun playing on it. Your little one is so cute! 
His old shell is definitely empty this morning. I can't wait to see what he settled on! 
