HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello! I’ve had my hermits for about 2 1/2 months. I went from a 5 gal to a 10 and now 29. I got 2 from petsmart thinking they would be easy pets... no lol anyways so Scuttle molted almost immediately in the 10 gal. After he finished molting I moved them over into the 29 only a few days after that. Scuttle went back down for a bit and Flounder was up and about.
I got a Waze Camera and was stoked to start watching them. Scuttle finally came up and was wondering around. Someone was getting rid of their hermits so I rescued one and gave my mom 2. Immediately after that Flounder and the new one Ursula went down that was August 25th.
Since then Scuttle has really opened up and is all over the tank and had it to himself since they went down.
Well 2 nights ago Flounder came up!! I was so excited!! He made it through his first molt!!! He is a lot bigger than I remember!! Lol
Anyways so now they seem to be squaring off kind of. Idk what it is!! Idk if it is bc Scuttle is like who are you? Or trying to show dominance or what.
I have 6 inches of sand and ee mix
Salt and fresh water to submerge in
Variety of foods bought from the healthy hermit on Etsy green sand and worm casings at all times. 2 proteins daily
Humidity stays around 88-95% and temps around 76
I have about 15 shells in there
I have included a short video just to maybe get thoughts??
Thanks y’all!! Sorry it’s so long

https://youtu.be/psH_DIc3zBU

Forgot to add! I think Scuttle is the smaller one and Flounder (the new molter) is the bigger one

Hi; thanks for the video, that's very helpful to see the actual behavior. I wouldn't call that a fight at all. These are wild animals in a very new situation, where they are contained in a tiny space and are going to have to adapt their behaviors enormously in order to figure out how to live. Unless you see one actually grab another with a claw and start pulling or shaking, they are just working things out and there's no need to worry. If you do see an actual physical fight, you might have to consider separating them.

Note on adding crabs: I know it is a great temptation to try to "collect them all," but at this point, if you can just stick with the three you now have (that is plenty to deal with, considering they can live for 30 years and grow to be the size of baseballs!), that will help them to adjust to captivity better.

Basically, every new animal you add to a captive situation does not just increase the complexity of social interactions by one, but by geometrically increasing numbers. So, two animals just have two possible directions of interaction: A to B and B to A; putting a third in means you don't have just three types of interaction, but lots more: A to B, A to C, B to A, B to C, C to A, C to B, and two-on-one interactions: A and B to C, A and C to B, B and C to A, and each one separately responding to the two others, etc., etc. Each additional animal you add into a captive population causes the interaction profiles to explode even more. This increases the chances of aggressive encounters (as well as increasing the possibility of an active crab encountering a molter underground, which can result in cannibalism). This is another reason why, even though many of the long-term crabbers here DO have large colonies (in very large crabitats), for most people I would say just two or three crabs is a good number for long-term crab-keeping.

Hi! thanks for the response! Yes I know I am at my limit with them. Lol I was toying with the idea of getting another one and my friend said she knew someone trying to get rid of hers and there were 3 in a small tote carrier and I couldn’t leave them like that.
I completely understand your take on it and appreciate your advice and comments.
Relieving to hear that it is not too much to have to worry about with them fighting. I am really trying to give them the best life they can have and def don’t want them hurting each other in the process.

You're doing great; it's a continuous learning process! Best wishes.