HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello all!! First, thank you everyone for this entire forum - I had no idea what I was getting into and this has been an absolutely invaluable resource.

In order to not TL;DR this whole story, I'll cut to the chase: Will my smaller crab get depressed alone while waiting for my bigger guy to come back upstairs? It is actually best to just wait, right? Not, like, introduce a third crab to keep the little guy company and then be a whole HUGE surprise to the big guy?

Background: I'm from New England, although I've been in California for years. It may be confusing and weird for anyone from anywhere else (and horrifying to crab lovers) but hermit crabs are a throw-away staple of every child's summer vacation from the Cape to OOB. You buy them on the beach, in painted shells, in a tiny plastic carrier with a neon top and about 60 multi-colored aquarium rocks on the bottom, and you take them home - on your bike - to your cabin or campsite and over the next week you watch them slowly die like a bouquet of cut flowers. I personally never did this, but it is a way of life.

I recently went home to New England over the summer. I visited Hampton Beach in NH and, overwhelmed by nostalgia and ****, I decided I had missed out on an important part of my hometown culture. Yes, I thought, I *would* buy my first hermit crabs of life. Next to the toe rings and soft serve, a wizened sea witch beckoned me to her Bob Marley-draped craft table and I chose two very cool shells from her death colony (one metallic silver with red spots, one Spongebob smoking a joint). There must have been 30 crabs in a one-gallon metal grid cylinder - all rainbowed out and in serious distress. The Spongebob guy seemed to really want to get out of there.

To her credit, she did recommend that I get more than one, but it's likely she was just trying to sell them to me. She also recommended spritzing them, but she didn't specify that tap water is not cool AT ALL, and her spray-to-the-face technique seemed a little rude. Anyhow! I brought 2 sweethearts home and have been doing my damndest every since. You all have been such an enormous help.

I did of course have to smuggle them in a carry-on, which I'm sure was unimaginably unpleasant - but don't they all get to us on a plane to begin with? (Poor things.) I do still feel bad about making them repeat that - even before I researched anything I could see they have memories and emotions and they were very, very scared and upset in my secret purse during ear-popping time.

When I got them home to a semi-permanent spot I set them up in what I thought were sweet new digs - a cute 5G little nonsense from the pet store - but I noticed right away it was way too small for two dudes and all their fun furniture. I set it up right and good with humidity and both fresh and salt water and varied food every day and fun climbing toys etc. Everything I read told me they would likely be desperate to molt but it took me about a week to get back to the store and get them a much larger tank. When I got home - of course! - the little guy was gone. I left him alone, moved the bigger guy to the new tank (with an appropriate sub depth for him), and within an hour he was gone too. His name's Sneaky.

Six weeks later the little one's back! (Their molting chambers are fascinating, btw.) The bigger guy is considerably larger so I'm not expecting him back for another few months I guess.

So ... I have two (5) questions:

1. Should I move the little guy into the new house? Or is the bigger guy still vulnerable to cannibalism and they should both stay in their own spots until he comes back?

And 2. Will the little guy get depressed on his own? Will he get less depressed if he's in the same tank even though homie's not much company at the moment? Or will he just eat him?

Again, thank you all for even being here. This is a fun weird little club and I'm very excited to have discovered what a treat these creatures really are.

No, they don't get depressed when their tank mates are underground. I have had my two for over 12 years, and they have only ever been down at the same time a couple of times.

If you have deep enough substrate in the new tank - at least 2 to 3 times as deep as your largest crab - and the tank is big enough, the crab in the new tank won't be vulnerable to the other one digging him up.

Welcome to the weird club of crabbing! LOL!

Thank you!! An update:

I did move the little guy to the larger tank the day after you posted your response. He was exploring and loving it for a little while but then started paying a little too much attention to the corner where I'm *prrrrreeeetttttty* sure the big guy is hanging out. He tried getting up under a(n extremely cute) ceramic couch that I think might be the specific spot, as he himself went under his own corresponding (extremely cute) ceramic arm chair when he made *his* molting chamber.

I got nervous and moved him back to the little house - which he more or less destroyed IMMEDIATELY - and the next morning I found him trying to climb the glass walls in what I swear was an actual temper tantrum.

But, I mean, I shouldn't sacrifice the happiness of a definitely alive crab at the expense of possibly-never-to-be-seen-again crab, right? So I crossed my fingers and moved him back.

Anyway he loves it and it was all fun and games until last night, when I noticed a HUGE cavern opened up under the couch. I assumed Sneaky was back, even though I was (am?) surprised it took him only a few more weeks than a guy just about half his size. If it was in fact the little guy who caused the cavern, it's 1000% the biggest thing I've seen him make/unmake (although he was more than proficient at destroying that smaller house, so ...)

So but ANYWAY!! there's otherwise no sign of Sneaky. I haven't seen the shell that he took down with him, so I assume he's still in it. The other large shells that are lying around do seem disturbed - all moved, some partially buried - but he's not in any of them. And now the little dude (who's actually, I guess, kind of medium now) is hanging out periodically in the giant hole under the couch with all three food and water dishes untouched since yesterday.

What happened? Is Sneaky somewhere fine and he just wants to be underground? I mean ... somebody dug him out, right? Was it himself? Shouldn't he be very hungry and the food dish be disturbed?

I assume there's nothing to do about it except wait. I certainly don't feel experienced enough to go looking for him in case I'm wrong about the spot he picked and he is in fact still in a molting chamber in some other part of the tank.

Help! What I do?? Nothing? It's nothing, isn't it?

Thank you!!

IIIIIII... would probably just watch and wait, yeah. Since you haven't seen obvious aggression, and Big guy isn't on the surface and injured, there's probably not an emergency, and when it comes to stressed and possibly-molting crabs, it's best to give them time and space. Hiding spots. Places where they can be on the surface but separate from each other when Big guy does surface. Calcium. High energy foods like honey or bee pollen, ground nuts, peanut butter, eggs (raw or cooked), feeder insects. Could I ask what size is their tank?

Hi, thank you! They're in a 10 gallon at the moment. I went straight from the airport, to a pet store, to work, so I could only carry a tiny 3 g starter tank with the rest of my luggage and of course my living contraband. (They are safe here in the back and honestly a little bit beloved.)

Once I noticed how much floor space their water and food dishes needed I brought an old 10 gallon from home, with the intention of setting them up cute and getting them comfortable and then moving the whole tank, but of course as soon as they were able to molt they did. I've read that moving a tank with somebody underground is certain death, so for now we wait in the 10 g until either the big guy comes back or we all decide he won't? My plan was to transport them in the 10 g and have at least a 20 g waiting at home.

Interestingly, today I found one of the very largest loose shells abandoned in the food dish. It really seems too big and/or heavy for the little guy - but I have no idea what he's capable of at this point. Almost all the other very large shells are pulled at least half into the sub. Maybe homie is in fact alive and exploring when I can't see him but he hates all available shells so he's going back under and staying with the original one he brought down with him? Is that a thing? Or is the little guy a straight-up beast?

Anyway this is a blast.

All you can really do is offer them a variety of shell sizes and wait for them to pick one. If you think that the ones in there are too big, you could try offering some smaller ones. you can also boil them in salt water mix to clean them and make them more enticing to your crabs. If you live in the US, you probably have caribbean hermit crabs, meaning that they prefer shells with O shaped openings, like turbos. some crabs are picky btw and like to switch often! I have a crab like that myself haha

Oh my god that's why I named him Sneaky! Lol