Are they fighting or?

[IsabellaLusk]

So I have had two hermits, from what I understand they are about seven years old. Today I got another crab from someone on Facebook. I put them all in a new enclosure and one of my crabs keeps getting on top of the new one. He keeps like tipping the other ones shell towards him. Not sure what they’re doing. Should I be worried? Should I separate? Is this normal? I haven’t done this before hahaha

[wodesorel]

Yeah, it's a territorial thing because they feel each other are invaders. Best thing to do is dip them all in the freshwater pool - it makes them all smell the same and usually that is enough to settle them all down again.

[IsabellaLusk]

Okay thank you! Seemed to help a lot.

[HermitofHermitCrabs]

For future note it would be best to take all of your above surface crabs and put them in a shallow pool of water together with any new additions for at least 10-20 minutes. I have a large glass bowl that I use for the aforementioned process, which is escape proof and solves any aggression problems.

[curlysister]

A quick dip in the fresh water will make them all smell the same, no need to soak them and possibly stress them out.

[wodesorel]

Yeah, they only need a dip to rinse them off. Anything else is just stressful and unnecessary.