HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I changed up the crabitat today and notice some unusual behavior out of my largest crab, Maui.

He was the first out after I scared everyone away by moving their hiding places, and naturally he headed to the food dish first. Shortly after, my medium crab, Fiji, came out and started eating too. They were eating together for a while, which is what they normally do, then I noticed that Maui was starting to push Fiji out of the dish. When Fiji turned around to climb back in, Maui directly faced him and Fiji turned tail and ran.

After this Maui sat in the dish without eating for a good 10 minutes, then left to climb around in other parts of the crabitat. But when Fiji returned to pull a carrot out of the food dish to munch on, Maui ran back over, flipped poor Fiji on his back, and stole the carrot to eat himself. After this, the crabs both left the dish and have been acting like normal since.

I'm not sure if it has anything to do with diet. I have been giving them protein daily, but I live in a lower SES area, so sometimes organic fruits and veggies for them are difficult to find. Last week was one of this times, but now they are back to their normal diet.

Could this have something to do with their diet? Or was it from moving the crabitat around?

Hiya!

Hmmm... a certain amount of bullying is normal among crabs. And when things are moved around, or when a crab comes up from a moult, some individuals feel the need to test/reassert the pecking order.

If you are worried about it, try adding a second feeding dish... it might be amusing to watch Maui try to protect both.

Out of curiosity, how big is the tank & how many crabs do you have?

I notice mild bullying after a complete tank redo. In my case it settles down the same day. Might be worth while to take Lady Js advice and try 2 dishes.

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I use individual shells as food dishes so the crabs can drag them off, and they do! I also feed foraging foods, so that cuts down on bullying as well. Try doing that. Do you chop the foods up so they can share?


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I've got three small crabs (of which Maui's the largest of them) in a 10 gallon. They're growing very quickly though so I'll probably have to get a larger tank in the next month or so!

And I'll try the two dishes today and see if that helps.

It is definitely better for the crabs if you can do 1 crab per 5 gallons. Try checking Craigslist, OfferUp, LetGo, Bookoo for tanks. You can usually find great deals there!


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