HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello everyone again. I recently put a lot of driftwood and twigs in my crab terrarium. They really like to climb them, but I noticed that they often fall down from the branch. I've been watching the crabs and they can get off the branches if they get to the top of them, but they just jump down and I'm a little worried. Would it hurt them to fall? The distance from the branch to the sand is small, but I constantly hear them falling, especially at night

They’ll be okay, a little fall like that won’t hurt them


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My old tank was 3 feet high and I regularly had divers launch from the top branches! Never had an issue though I moved the resin water dishes away from the landing zones just in case.

wodesorel wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 24, 2024 11:40 pm

My old tank was 3 feet high and I regularly had divers launch from the top branches! Never had an issue though I moved the resin water dishes away from the landing zones just in case.

Thanks for the reply. I also wanted to know about the fact that my crabs don't communicate with each other. I have 2 small crabs, but one of them is slightly larger than the other. A smaller crab wants to communicate with a large crab, but a large crab constantly throws the baby off the branches and pushes it away. They don't fight or anything like that. They have shells of different sizes, so they wouldn't fight over the shells. I also give them dried insects and shrimp every day, so it's not about cannibalism.. Is this behavior normal for them?

Hi! That behavior sounds pretty normal to me!! Different crabs have different personalities, so the one probably is just less social. I have a crab like that! Also, I see that you’ve gotten a response about the branch falling thing, but I wanted to say that it probably won’t hurt your crabs at all. I had a similar situation. My one crab kept walking off the ledge of a rock cave in her tank. She would just walk jump right off the edge. It was very odd but she was fine!! And it was a pretty high fall too! Hope this helps

Also my crabs fought at first (I know you said yours didn’t fight but still) but they are much more social with eachother now so maybe yours will become closer with time

sophie_rice wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 26, 2024 4:05 pm

Hi! That behavior sounds pretty normal to me!! Different crabs have different personalities, so the one probably is just less social. I have a crab like that! Also, I see that you’ve gotten a response about the branch falling thing, but I wanted to say that it probably won’t hurt your crabs at all. I had a similar situation. My one crab kept walking off the ledge of a rock cave in her tank. She would just walk jump right off the edge. It was very odd but she was fine!! And it was a pretty high fall too! Hope this helps

Thanks, I'm calm now My crabs have been living with me for two months. I bought them at a pet store, there were about 30 of them in one small terrarium, so they used to live together and, in theory, should get used to communicating with other crabs. I put about 5 more branches in the terrarium for them and I hope that now they will stop feuding with each other because of this

That sounds great!!