HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I have an LED strip that can cycle through a few different colors, various shades of blue red green and white. I usually set it on white light, but the crabitat looks super cool in red or especially dark blue.

My question is will these non natural colors upset or harm my crabs?

It shouldn't, since those colors are similar to the red and black reptile bulbs. However, because of the lack of testing on terrestrial animals (reptiles generally need heat more than plain lighting) it would be best to turn the lights off at night when you're not observing them. LEDs put out different wavelengths than incandescent bulbs and using them at night could throw them off.

How do your crabs respond to the other colours besides white?
If they act "normal" then I imagine that the crabs aren't too fussed about it. But then again, heat bulbs are normally red and many crabbers have the heat bulbs on their tanks - 24/7 - and the crabs don't really mind. And the dark blue would be an awesome transition from daylight to night - turning it off....

I got the light while they were all down molting and have only recently started using it now theyre up, and with them being nocturnal I havent gotten to observe them to much when the light is actually on.

I keep the light on a 12 hour cycle and Ive only been using white light regularly, only tried the other colors for brief moments.

I guess ill just give em a shot and see what happens.

on my 56g, during the day I have the white lights like you are talking about, as well as 3 reptile bulbs that produce heat, 2 of which are blue and one normal day light. At dusk, I turn the day light off, and click the light strip to blue lighting. When I go to bed, I click off the blue light so that they have just the two nighttime bulbs on. So these two night time bulbs are on 24/7, however, at night you really can not see them in the tank, as they are very dim. If they were too bright, I would turn those off as well, but they really help maintain my night time heat.

I haven't seen any cause for concern using the blue light, and like the others said, red is also used for reptiles, so I would think you are fine!