HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I was just wondering how we all got started in this hobby. Sometimes I feel badly for people new to the site who come with with an emergency, fill out the help template, and are embarrassed find out they are doing everything wrong, never realizing that many of us starting out doing some of the exact same things, and have evolved to the state of knowledge we are at now, because people helped us. I always hope they don't get embarrassed enough not to come back, because they need the info the HCA provides.

So I just thought I'd take this poll to see how many of us started out just like these people I'm thinking about.

Hmmm, thats kind of a hard question. I got started when my daughter called me from cheerleading camp in Florida asking if she could buy a hermit crab to bring home. I told her yes. She brought home Hermie in one of those wire mesh cages, but as soon as she got home with her, I immediately started doing research on them and found out how to take care of them pretty much right off the bat. She probably only had a week or so in not so good conditions until I was able to go out and get everything she needed. So, when we got her, the info given was wrong (im assuming anyway since she came home in a wire cage) but I had the common sense to find out what she needed right away

Angela

I went searching right away for info after buying my hermies (I knew better than to trust pet store info) and stumbled across this site pretty much right away, so I was lucky

I did tons of reasearch on hermies, but never found this iste somehow! so I started off with good basic things like humidity, lids, sand, climbing stuff... but some not so good info too. there was nothing about salt water, a lot about bathing, and when my first crab left it's shell I assumed that was the normal thing for molting.

I actually had a good 'tat minus the salt water (I had guages, all that jazz) and then I discoverd the need for salt water. then I found the HCA and asked some salt water questions, and then got hooked on this site

I got bad information from certain sources and did most things wrong. It at least told me what molting is.

I began with no help from the people at the pet store. I actually thought I was just getting a little pet to keep me entertained in my dorm room at college. So, I bought a kritter keeper with a little shell dish, a palm tree, fish gravel, and a little mister. I picked up a container of commercial crab food and found an extra shell that looked like it would fit the crab. The crab I purchased was a tiny E named Wrigley, and I began to do research on taking care of him about a week later. To my horror, I was not being a decent crab mommy. I ran to Petco and bought everything Wrigley needed, including a buddy named Sully. Both have passed on now, but I have come a long way...now owning six happy crabs that call a 15 gallon tank their "home".

By the way, I couldn't have come this far if I hadn't stumbled upon this website! It's a lifesaver

I started out with 3 crabs in painted shells from the mall (Miss Green, Superman, Pinky- RIP) in a 5g critter keeper. I used to work in science research (before kids) and therefore have to research everything that is remotely biological. Even common sense would tell you not to listen to the guy in the mall selling crabs out of a booth "look the crab loves to go down the slide". I bought two books (one was hermit crabs for dummies) and searched the Internet. I found this site on the first day and started asking a whole heap of questions, as well as just reading everyone else's posts. People are so helpful here. I learned a lot just reading around the different forums and from other HCA members. Cheers to everyone I now am a full fledged addict and now think the HCA secretly stands for Hermit Crab Anonymous [smilie=grouphug.gif]

This one is for my little boy Kevin 4 :
this one for my little girl Michelle 6
and for Hubby

I started off a few years before I actually got the crabs, with a book my friend purchased for me on eBay. It was something titled along the lines of "Care for Land Hermit Crabs" and came from the late 70's or early 80's it seems. For the time, the book was up to date on all the care of crabs, but by todays standards was far below (no mention of humidity or love of digging, and little info on molting.) I guess at that time not much was known about the animals, so it was an ok source. Much to my parents dismay, my girlfriend purchased me two crabs, a 2.5 gallon tank, a bag of calci sand, and some dried shrimp for my birthday in 2003 or so. Joe and Bertold, 2 tiny PP's, one was really outgoing, the other was a terrified of life. They both lived a while, and were preceeded by many more crabs. Eventually I ended up with two medium PP's, Jupiter and Captain Ahab (he was missing a leg.) For the first year of their lives, they lived in what we would consider deplorable conditions, and what the old book would consider perfect. A little substrate, water, a shell or two. Then one day this previous year, Ahab passed away, and it was just about then I found this site. In all my years of poor crab care, I had never seen a crabby out of its shell, so I googled hermit crab out of shell, and eventually got routed to christa's site and here. To make a long story short, I had an emergency (actually my first molt) and found out a lot of changes needed to occur, mainly humidity. I've now upgraded to a fairly overcrowded 5.5 gallon (I'm a college student that lives 5 hours from home and doesn't own a car. Any bigger and it would cause major problems on breaks.) Basically, I came here, read a lot, asked for help, and got addicted. All based off of some cruddy old book.

BTW... the book had diagrams on how to build a tank to breed LHCs. Yes, breed them in captivity. A while ago some people had showed some interest in seeing these diagrams, so when I get home for the summer, I will resurrect the book, scan them, and put them here.

if i new the stuff i now now when i first got started i would still have hermies my 1st crab. the second week i had him he had molted and i thought he had died and threw him in a river [smilie=crybaby.gif] [smilie=crybaby.gif] [smilie=crybaby.gif] i beat my self up every day for doing that i am seriously shedding little tears right now (sniff sniff ) but im really good at this now thankgoodness for this site