HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello! It's been awhile since I've posted here lol. So about 9 months ago I adopted two hermit crabs, Basil and Skelly(i'll post pictures at the end in case anyone also wants to help me figure out what breed Skelly is). They're still alive(I'm pretty proud of myself) and they're crabitat is set up with the right conditions. However, one thing I've been noticing is that Basil who is much bigger might be bullying Skelly? She dug herself under for a long time and would come up every so often, but wouldn't get food and every time Basil will go over to her and she buries herself again. I've only seen her get food a few times(I also am not always watching because they're skiddish) and I'm just worried he's bullying her into not getting food. He's a PP(I think) and I know they're prone to that. Does anyone have any ideas? I want her to eat, I even get them organic hermie food . Basil even hogs the food dish. He never stops eating!

Here they are:

Skelly:


Basil(Much more active & Photogenic):

You could always put in 2 dishes. Since they don't eat much it could even be the exact same amount of food- he can't be 2 places at once! She also might be eating at night while you sleep since they are nocturnal. To be honest though once they establish the pecking order they usually get along pretty well. Mine love to cuddle. They only get the occasional boot to the face by Mrs. Robinson. lol They are both beautiful purple pinchers!

Rawrgeous wrote:You could always put in 2 dishes. Since they don't eat much it could even be the exact same amount of food- he can't be 2 places at once! She also might be eating at night while you sleep since they are nocturnal. To be honest though once they establish the pecking order they usually get along pretty well. Mine love to cuddle. They only get the occasional boot to the face by Mrs. Robinson. lol They are both beautiful purple pinchers!

Such cuties I agree with Rawrgeous. One of our hermies was a food bully and would literally cover his whole body over the food dish and when one of the other hermies would try to get near the food dish, he was flipped over with a swat! Lol! Since then we went from 3 hermies to 5 and upgraded our tank so when I set out food dishes, I have one on one side of the tank and the other just about a foot away. No issues since


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Okay, thank you guys! I'll work on finding them another food dish. Hopefully then he'll quit being a pain xD

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Yea lol. My crab Hairy used to hog the food bowl and every time the smaller crab would come near he'd flick his claw out and send the smaller one rolling until I put it to a stop and moved Hairy away from the bowl. After that he stopped. Also your hermit is a species most commonly sold in pet stores, at least around where I live. They have many names: tree crab, soldier crab, and their scientific name, coenobita clypeatus. But me and most ppl I know call them purple pincher and Caribbean crab cuz those are common names for them.