HCA: Hermit Crab Association

So, we bought some Doc Wellfish's Aquarium salt, and mixed it in with a gallon of distilled water. I assume that salt water stays good for a long time? Like, could we just pour salt water out of the gallon jug into our salt water dish whenever we needed it? How often does the salt water need to be changed?

Oh, we used 1/2 cup Doc Wellfish's per 1 gallon distilled water.

Thanks for the help.

I got a piece of paper about care of hermit crabs and it says make a mixture of 1 oz. of table salt (non-iodized) to 1 quart of water (after you have taken the metals and such out of the water). Hope this helps. I change the water daily as I do the drinking water I provide for him.

I would NOT use any type of table salt. If you are going to use straight salt, use sea salt. Table salt will kill your hermit crabs!

The measurment I use and of course the salt water disappears in my tank is 1 oz of salt for every 4 cups of water. Hope this helps.

Tinster wrote:I got a piece of paper about care of hermit crabs and it says make a mixture of 1 oz. of table salt (non-iodized) to 1 quart of water (after you have taken the metals and such out of the water). Hope this helps. I change the water daily as I do the drinking water I provide for him.

To clear it up a bit, its the anti-clumping agent in any type of salt is whats bad for them. Not the iodide. Any form of table salt is bad for the hermit crabs.

Ok, as a geologist, I know that salt is actually super small crystals of halite.
So, what if I just got a big block of halite, and powdered it, and used that for salt? The only thing that you'd have to worry about is the impurities in it. What if you could get actual seawater, boil it, and get the salt from that?

Bigalpha, that's exactly what I did. I was in Maine for a week, took pot after pot of sea water, filtered it, and boiled it. Got about 20lbs of sea salt in a big bag in my room

I tried the store sea-stuff, but the hermies like this a LOT better

unfortunately, I am landlocked in Tennessee.

How often should I change the salt water?

If I mix a gallon, should it be ok to be stored while I use it?

Is morton kosher salt safe? It is the only salt I have to use. Are all anti-caking agents poisonous to crabs. The one in morton salt is yellow prussiate of soda.

dont use morton! NO TABLE SALT!

At your local petshop they will sell marine salt for salt water tanks. I buy this one from petco for my brackish tank and my hermie pool-

LINK

The 5 lbs oceanic. its about 4.99 where i live. theres also some hermitcrab salt

I also have a small jar of HBH Hermit Crab Salt, someone gave to me as a gift for the little guys... not sure what the verdict is in the crab world about it, but the crabs dont seem to notice the difference

LINK

Hey I read that from a book that they sold at Meijers. I don't have ANY pet stores, anything for a couple hour drive from me that will sell that kind of salt or anything for salt tanks. So when they said to use it that sounded like the best idea instead of driving over two hours for a pet store when I can't even drive. I am new also to the hermit crab business so be easy on me please.

There are a ton of online stores that sell hermie stuff cheap. Do a google search for "Sea Salt" and maybe you can get like a 5lb bag for around a few bucks

Tinster wrote:Hey I read that from a book that they sold at Meijers. I don't have ANY pet stores, anything for a couple hour drive from me that will sell that kind of salt or anything for salt tanks. So when they said to use it that sounded like the best idea instead of driving over two hours for a pet store when I can't even drive. I am new also to the hermit crab business so be easy on me please.

Im sorry! i just re-read my post, and it seems much harsher then I ment it to. Sorry, not trying to yell

Ya, mail order is great! and on-line sources are great to. and once you get a bag of marine salt, it will last for a VERY long time! I just dont want your crabbies to get sick or worse from the table salt

bigalpha wrote:Ok, as a geologist, I know that salt is actually super small crystals of halite.
So, what if I just got a big block of halite, and powdered it, and used that for salt? The only thing that you'd have to worry about is the impurities in it. What if you could get actual seawater, boil it, and get the salt from that?

Sea water has dozens of salt compounds in it. Only the mixtures specifically put together to provide all of these compounds (i.e. salt water aquarium salts) will work.

Don't even try to find "hermit crab salt". Any brand marketed specifically for hermies is either no good or is horribly overpriced. You can use any of the marine aquarium salts. I believe both Oceanic and Instant Ocean sell smaller bags (2 1/2 cups, enough to mix 5 gallons of salt water) of salt, so you won't have to buy a huge bag of it. You can also use Doc Wellfish or Jungle Aquarium Salt, they're fine, too, maybe not quite as good as a quality marine salt, but better than table salt. DO NOT use any kind of table salt, the anti-caking agents are toxic. Yellow Prussiate of Soda is a cyanide derivative. You don't want your crabs drinking that. You would mix those the same as the other salt mixes, 1/2 cup to one gallon of water. You can get Doc Wellfish at Wal-Mart, in the fish section (maybe at Meijers, too), Jungle at most pet stores. Well, any aquarium salt would be better than nothing (or table salt), but it's hard to know how much to mix. In general, if there's directions for "hatching brine shrimp", use those mixing directions.