First Paladarium Build

[Nellie Souder]

Hey everyone! I'm new here. I've had Hermits for 6 years now, I've had my oldest since I started. Her name is peanut, she's a Caribbean hermit, when I got her she was the size of a peanut, and now she's the size of a golf ball!
They've had a lot of different enclosures over the years, but currently they're in a 30 gallon tub with a basic fresh and saltwater pool and a few decorations. I had to move back home recently, and had to downsize.

So recently I've become very interested in building a hermit crab paladarium, with a 10 gallon water area at the bottom to keep some small fish, and a separate smaller area for the salt. It will be a 40 gallon tall enclosure, mostly designed for climbing with different shelves constructed into the enclosure to hold shells, food bowls, hiding places, pretty much everything the hermits need, and then they'll have a six inch deep area for borrowing at the bottom.
My main concern is making it hermit safe.
My plan is to line the pool walls with porous lava rock so the crabs have plenty of surface to grip and climb, to try to minimize the chances of drowning. There will also be a shallow area for them to soak in before it drops into the Aquatic area, which I'm planning to stock with non aggressive nano fish, maybe some Minnows and shrimp. I'm planning to construct a waterfall into the land area to keep the water moving and keep humidity high.
I figure I'll post here as the project goes on, I don't even have the tank yet so it'll probably be a while before I have another update. But if anyone has any input or suggestions I'd love to hear them!

[JoeHermits]

The crabs will be fine so long as they can get in and out of the water okay.

It’s the other animals who need to watch out. Anything slow can be attacked by a hungry crab, and they will drag junk into the water so you’ll have occasional (or not so occasional) nitrogen spikes. Not that it can’t be done, just a few things to think about.


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[Nellie Souder]

The crabs will be fine so long as they can get in and out of the water okay.

It’s the other animals who need to watch out. Anything slow can be attacked by a hungry crab, and they will drag junk into the water so you’ll have occasional (or not so occasional) nitrogen spikes. Not that it can’t be done, just a few things to think about.


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So do you think some geckos would be preyed on by the crabs? I'm not sure what kind yet, still looking into species. I'd love a create gecko, but a different arboreal species would be fine with me as long as they have roughly the same temp and humidity requirements as the crabs.

[JoeHermits]

Geckos are sensitive to saltwater, to my knowledge.


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[sundewgirl]

Would love to know if this turned out- I have had a couple of mountain minnows and a onion snail in a 2.5 gallon freshwater tank inside my 80 gal long for about a year now and they are doing well. My crabs occasionally take a swim and the fish go and hide in their little ship decoration until the crab leaves, they don't seem otherwise bothered.