HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I currently have three PP's in my 10 gallon crabitat (and a 4th newbie in iso). My three are all tiny/smalls and have been together for over a month.

I am a bit concerned because yesterday Houdini and Pattie had a little scuffle. Houdini seemed to be the agressor. Basically, Houdini got in Pattie's face and there were legs and claws flailing. I opened the lid and they went their separate ways...and no one was hurt (whew!). However, Houdini spent the whole PM stalking Pattie...she spent the whole evening right outside the coco hut that Pattie was hanging out in.

My crabs have never had a fight before. It seems odd that they would wait so long to decide to go after each other.

Should I be concerned?

I have to ask if you have enough shells for everyone. Scuffles happen- last night my large straw flicked my one crab out of the food dish 3xs - they will fight when they change shells too if another crab is coming up and the other feels threatened.

SO I would suggest you watch them--sometimes you have bully crabs too- sudden aggression could mean you have a cranky crab because he wants to molt- make sure your substrate is deep enough to ensure a good dig down

Hi Hermez

I have about 15 shells out for the three of them and the two fighting wear different size shells.

Also, all three just came up from molts within the past month. I would hope that they aren't ready to molt again.

I will keep an eye on them and hope they get over it quickly.

It sounds like they were establishing a pecking order. Claws and legs flailing is a sign of an act of dominance establishment. A crab trying to pull another from it's shell is a shell fight.

Anyway, pecking order establishments are 100% normal. It's no reason to be worried.

Yeah, my 2 crabbies do that once in awhile. It's not really much to worry about unless it gets too out of hand.

Maybe it's mating season in your tank

Hermit crabs cannot mate in captivity^.

^ they can mate, they just can't release the eggs

crab_luver2974 wrote:^ they can mate, they just can't release the eggs

Really? I didn't know that....have any links on it?

Yeah 'cause I heard they cannot mate in captivity.

The lady who runs Crabbage Patch has had her crabs mate a couple of times. Her problem was she didn't have a saltwater tank set up in time for the babies to make it much past hatching. The link to her site is in the links section and if I remember correctly, there is a part of her site that sort of chronicles it.

Thanks for the advice! Houdini thinks that she is Top Crab now and none of the other crabs seem to care

I'm just glad that she isn't picking on the other crabs anymore!

I had one larger crab "flick" a smaller crab out of the way after a feeler fight right after I introduced the larger one to the 'tat. It was right before my bedtime, but I was up for another good hour or so trying to figure out if I needed to ISO somebody, but then I read that it was probably a pecking order thing *whew*. We didn't have any more problems.

I guess they can mate, and lay eggs, but they need to have an ocean to throw the mature eggs into or else they drop the eggs and they die. I think they have to have certain condition even to mate, though. Tammy at The Crabbage Patch mentioned having a large outdoor pen for her crabs where they probably feel like they're not in captivity...