HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hi! Just a bit of background in case anyone hasn't seen some of my earlier posts: We are new crab owners. In late August, we "rescued" a PP that someone was going to release at the beach. I got him set up with a 29 gallon tank, 6" of 5:1 substrate, UTH, fresh and salt water, and some accessories. He went under not long after moving into the new tank and finally emerged last week - after 11 weeks (just about when I was convinced he hadn't made it).

After reading about how crabs are social animals, I wanted to get him some friends, but didn't want to risk introducing new crabs while he was molting. Well, if all goes according to plan, this weekend we should hopefully be adopting 3 PPs that someone posted on the adoption board here. The owner is kindly going to be giving us a bunch of their accessories and based on all my communications with her, they seem to be very well cared for and have lots of "stuff" coming with them (shells, climbing sticks, etc.).

Here's my question: I've seen lots of posts about introducing a new crab, but in most cases it seems to be one or two crabs coming into an established colony/environment. In this case, it'll be three crabs who know each other coming into a 29 gallon tank with a single crab who has spent most of his time with us underground - and is therefore a bit of an unknown. I've read about making sure there are adequate protein sources and shells (which I need more of, but I think I'm getting some with the new arrivals) but is there anything else I should do to make the transition easier/safer for everyone involved? Do I need to isolate anyone?

Thanks in advance!

What I've read on here is when the molter comes up, hopefully you'll know shortly after, give him a quick dip in the freshwater pool, like you would introducing a new crab. Wow, that was a long sentence.

We have introduced a few crabs at a time. We always dip our new arrival in the the dechlorinated freshwater before adding them to the colony. Dipping them is supposed to make them smell like the current crabs. Perhaps you can also dip your current crab at the same time too.

Like you said if you have a balanced diet avaliable and the correct size shells I don't see any issues. It would be best to introduce them at a time you can watch out for shell jacking and aggressive behavior. Antenna batting is normal. Watch out for grabbing, wrestling, and piggy backing.

Before introducing them I would try to inspect the new ones for mites. Mites will look like tiny pieces of sand that move around on the crab. I have never seen them but there is always a chance.

So today I got the three crabs we adopted and brought them home. I had added some more substrate since I wanted to make sure there was plenty of digging space should any of them want to hide. The three new girls have been all over the tank and have been exploring like crazy. However, Moe, our existing crab, immediately went into a corner and hasn’t moved since. Ironically, he’s the biggest of all of them. I dipped all 4 of them into the fresh water to make them all smell the same.

Since we have no idea of Moe’s background before we adopted him, is it possible that he was just living alone for so long he’s “forgotten” how to be a social crab? Will he adjust or have I doomed him to a miserable life now that he has to share his 29G tank?

I’ll admit that observing the new additions And how much they move around, I have to say that Moe is quite the couch potato in comparison!


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Also, one of the new additions changed shells right in front of me - that was one of the coolest things I’ve seen!! lol


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Of course mere minutes after I posted the above, Moe came out of hiding and “met” the biggest of the three new girls. I was told she can be a bit of a bully and she was on top of him for a bit while he was checking out one of the new shells, but she seems to have moved on. I think she was used to being HBIC before but she’s not as big as Moe so she might have to adjust her attitude. lol.


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