Temperature and Humidity

[C_fiesta]

Not usually, no. You need space for each crab, i.e. don't overcrowd the tank. I think you may be getting old information. It use to be common practice to seperate or isolate molters. The article I shared with you is updated and has the good information.

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[Hermias_mom]

Here's a link to the HCA care sheets, in case you haven't read them yet. http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... m.php?f=51 Have a look and see if you have questions, we'll be happy to help!

You mentioned that you have a cage for them, which if you're tropical with no A/C, this should be fine, but it would need to be a pretty big cage to accommodate 3 small/medium hermits (15-20 gallons per small/medium crab is the space recommendation in the care sheets). Also, I'm not sure how your cage would accommodate the deep substrate crabs require to molt. Minimum recommended substrate depth is 6" OR 3 times as deep as your largest crab, whichever is deeper. Not sure how you'd get that into a wire sided cage. Also, as crabs grow, they require deeper substrate, and if you get an Ecuadorian type hermit crab (instead of a purple pincher(PP) which is the standard variety), they need a minimum of 10-12" deep substrate or deeper, even when they're small. The substrate should be mixed to sandcastle consistency with dechlorinated water (saltwater is recommended to reduce mold, although freshwater is fine too) in order to hold their molting caves properly. So the substrate will need to stay moderately wet (not too wet, just until it holds the caves) all the time.

There's a crab size guide in the care sheets. If your crab is a jumbo, it may require the equivalent of a 55-75 gallon aquarium, minimum, the larger the better, so it can move around and walk. Crabs can double in size in a year, easily, so a 10 gallon tank now can easily become a 20 gallon tank next year for the same number of crabs, etc. They grow slower when they're large/jumbo size, but the smaller crabs tend to grow quickly when in good conditions. Crabs can live 10-20+ years in captivity, and have up to a 6" leg span when full grown. That's one big crab. Having a crab live 10-18 years in captivity is not at all uncommon. So IMO, crabs should be considered a long term pet, somewhat like a tortoise or large bird, or a horse even.

When crabs are small, they molt all the time. Tiny and small crabs can molt back-to-back for months. 4-6 weeks is a typical time a small/medium crab might be down, but then they can come up for a few days/week or so at night (so you may not even know they're done), and then they go back down and molt again. The larger crabs (large and jumbo) may take 10 months-18 months or more to molt, and they often wait longer between molts. But each crab is individual, every molt is different, and there really is NO WAY to predict how long each individual crab will take to molt each time he/she does it. And if they're down, digging them up to check on them is the worst thing you can do, and can lead to death, if the molt caves collapse.

I'm going to start with smaller hermit crabs so I can use the habitat I have, as they grow I'll change to a glass aquarium.
I'm actually really excited to own hermit crabs if my land lord lets me, so I'm ready and willing to sacrifice time, money, and patience to care for them, I obviously barely have any experience caring for hermit crabs aside from handling them from when I used to play with wild hermit crabs on the beach, but I gotta start somewhere I'll keep reading up on them and preparing mentally (I've read like 15 different articles already )
I think molting ia the scariest of all the things

I was wondering, hermit crabs molt just about anywhere in the wild, is it really needed to isolate them from the others when they molt? Or can they stay in the main cage?

They can all stay in the main cage. Many folks on HCA keep them in the same cage. That's why we have the crab size and tank size guidelines, so they can all have enough space to molt in the same tank safely. Nothing's ever 100% certain, but very good results have been had by many folks by observing the crab/tank size guidelines in the care sheets.

Isolation can be needed if they're attacked, injured, or if for some reason they try to surface molt (surface molting indicates bad tank conditions, which can be fixed). Also sometimes folks will isolate new crabs from the horde for a bit, but it's owner preference on that.

[PinchersAndShells]

A wire cage.... Just make sure you can get the minimum substrate depth of 6" or 3 times the size of your largest crab.