HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I hear lots of construction happening in my crabitat. Lots of scraping and digging and I keep hearing a booming/grunting noise. It's different from their normal chirp. I've been hearing a lot of digging the past few days. The grunting I've noticed for the past few hours. Should I be worried? I have 2 potentially molting down there and my big one Wildfire loves to dig around. Should I be worried about her eating them?

HOw big is your tank and how deep is your sub?

From my experience chirping is generally a sign of distress

curlysister wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:21 pm

HOw big is your tank and how deep is your sub?

10g, about 4 in deep

I just found an empty shell with just exo in it. I'm wondering if those sounds were my crab when she was being eaten...

How big are your crabs? If their shells are the size of a nickel or larger 4" is too shallow.

We recommend the substrate to be at least three times deeper than the shell of your largest crab. Or six inches, whatever is deeper. That allows room for the molting crab to dig deeper to safely molt. Molting crabs also release a smell that other crabs are attracted to. Being deeper it reduces the chance of other crabs finding them.

A ten gallon tank is only enough room for one, maybe two crabs depending on size at most. The HCA recommends 5 gallons per crab for purples, 10 gallons per crab for exotics.

Motörcrab wrote:How big are your crabs? If their shells are the size of a nickel or larger 4" is too shallow.

We recommend the substrate to be at least three times deeper than the shell of your largest crab. Or six inches, whatever is deeper. That allows room for the molting crab to dig deeper to safely molt. Molting crabs also release a smell that other crabs are attracted to. Being deeper it reduces the chance of other crabs finding them.

A ten gallon tank is only enough room for one, maybe two crabs depending on size at most. The HCA recommends 5 gallons per crab for purples, 10 gallons per crab for exotics.

Officially stocking guidelines are based on size, not species, although some species do prefer more space than others.

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JoeHermits wrote: ↑

Tue May 05, 2020 4:40 pm

Officially stocking guidelines are based on size, not species, although some species do prefer more space than others.

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At the bottom of that guideline it states that those recommendations may be too crowded by those guidelines such as E's and other exotics.

In the basic hermit crab care guide it states a minimum of 5 gallons per crab.

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"Remember that the more crabs you have, the more space they need, especially when they start growing! Every crab needs enough room to molt safely and to have their own space to get away from the other crabs if they feel the need. For a medium crab, the minimum necessary size is a 10 gallon glass aquarium. For long-term housing, each crab needs at least 5 gallons of space and even more than that as they grow bigger."

I agree with Motorcrab.

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Okay, thank you all so much. I will definitely add more substrate and this has been a very humbling experience. If that one did indeed die, I'll be back in the safe zone as that will leave me with 2 PPs. I thought it was deep enough, but then I actually measured it and realized. Guess I had to learn the hard way...

In the future I think I will be upgrading as I save more money. Once again, thank you all, this website is very useful and I'm grateful for all of your guys's knowledge and expertise.