HCA: Hermit Crab Association

When I first joined this forum, everyone was so inviting and caring. Y'all shared your advice and care with me, and you treated me as family. Many of you have entire rooms dedicated to your hermit crabs, and it inspired an idea in me. I could bring my hermit crab hobby and my boyfriends fish hobby together.
We started house shopping around this time last year. We knew we wanted a 3 bedroom at least, because eventually we want children. We were fortunate enough to find a beautiful 3 bedroom home that was newly renovated and right in our price range. Fast forward to Thanksgiving week, and it's ours! (Perfect timing huh?)
Anyways, all that sappy talk to say this:
We have been working on our aquarium room since the day we moved in. We have taken our time because we want it to be perfect. The only exception is our ball python, she has an entire build in the spare room and we like her being separated.
Here's our progress:

Left to right: 80 gallon bow front hermit crab tank, 10 gallon Axolotl tank, 10 gallon community tank (8 24k gold cloud fish, 1 elephant ear guppy, 1 nitrite snail), and BF's 20 gallon long planted tank (albino dojo loach, dalmatian molly, platys, snails, and a few different plants)


We still have an 80 gallon and a 55 gallon that we need to add. The 55 gallon was my previous hermit crab tank, so BF had to do some deep cleaning. It will be set up and ready for fish within a few weeks. The 80 gallon needs a stand built, so it will be later this year before we add it.

This room has easily become my favorite room in our home. It's so peaceful, I could sit in here all day. I now understand why y'all have dedicated rooms to your hermit crabs.

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Congrats on the room. I'm super jelly!

I'm kinda upset that there's no close up pics of the aquariums! and no bonus fish pics!

Excited for you for the eventual 55g! You could always combine your crab love by doing some vampire crab (or fiddlers) in a paludarium with fish. If with vampires, could also grow plants with ease and also have a colony of freshwater shrimp.

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I would not advise having children! Stay with snakes, crabbies and fish!!! Keep life simple and fun! Enjoy each other and your pets! Great set up you have! Keep up the great compassion and beautiful hobbies!

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aussieJJDude wrote:Congrats on the room. I'm super jelly!

I'm kinda upset that there's no close up pics of the aquariums! and no bonus fish pics!

Excited for you for the eventual 55g! You could always combine your crab love by doing some vampire crab (or fiddlers) in a paludarium with fish. If with vampires, could also grow plants with ease and also have a colony of freshwater shrimp.

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Thank you!
I just snapped some pictures to share for you. I figured someone would want some. Lol.

Xenocrab wrote:I would not advise having children! Stay with snakes, crabbies and fish!!! Keep life simple and fun! Enjoy each other and your pets! Great set up you have! Keep up the great compassion and beautiful hobbies!

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Hahaha, I kinda agree!! We've discussed it in detail, and right now we just want to enjoy our hobbies!

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Here's some close ups for yall. Sorry for bad quality, some of them are fast and my phone cant catch them haha


This is Henry, our Axolotl. We got him last month. The comparison photos is his one month growth! He's in a 10 gallon for now, but he will be upgraded to a 20 gallon soon.



This is my 10 gallon community tank. I'm not very good at scaping, I want to grow some plants. I just got my light in today, so I'll be ordering some plants to grow. Any suggestions for decor and plants are welcome





This is BF's 20 gallon long. We used to have a red fin shark and more orange/black platys, but the shark jumped and hit the lid and the platys were given to his dad to start a small tank for baby sister.



This is Dojo, our dojo loach. Hes a character!!!! Loves sitting here by the filter, or on top of the moss.



Fidget, our dalmatian molly


Philly


A trial plant we have been trying to grow in the tank. The roots have taken off!!!



And of course my hermit crabs! They LOVE the 80 gallon and the light. They're so active now! On the wheel a lot, making their way around everywhere. They haven't gone down to molt since moving into the 80, but they all did have long molts before the upgrade so maybe they're just enjoying life upside.




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It's beautiful, and those axolotls are so cool!

I love your aquarium room, all your tanks look awesome. Your axolotl is so cool! I’ve never seen one before, I had to look them up and see what they were after I saw yours.

Awesome room.

I raised and bred axolotl's up until about 6 months ago. They are such interesting and addicting creatures! Just as much as hermit crabs are it seems. LOL I had an entire room dedicated to all of my axie tanks as well. I would only suggest to be careful with the axolotl. Remember, they require cold water no warmer than 70 degrees, so quite a difference in what the tropical fish and hermits require. How are you keeping his tank cool enough with the tropical's?

odelayheehoo wrote:It's beautiful, and those axolotls are so cool!

Thank you!!!

RiNiKy506 wrote:I love your aquarium room, all your tanks look awesome. Your axolotl is so cool! I’ve never seen one before, I had to look them up and see what they were after I saw yours.

Thanks! Yeah, we both have always wanted one. There's a breeder that comes into town twice a year that we get our aquarium equipment from. We had to have one!

Wysper wrote:Awesome room.

I raised and bred axolotl's up until about 6 months ago. They are such interesting and addicting creatures! Just as much as hermit crabs are it seems. LOL I had an entire room dedicated to all of my axie tanks as well. I would only suggest to be careful with the axolotl. Remember, they require cold water no warmer than 70 degrees, so quite a difference in what the tropical fish and hermits require. How are you keeping his tank cool enough with the tropical's?

Yes they are!!!
We keep our house cold, none of our aquariums have heaters. They're all kept cold except the hermits. We use a temp gun to monitor the temps.

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Great pics!

You mentioned having troubling scaping your aquarium. Do you have a particular vision to how you want it to look? And inspo pics (and links) you may have would be great, and hopefully may be able to give a rough plan on an interesting scaped aquarium to enjoy.

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aussieJJDude wrote:Great pics!

You mentioned having troubling scaping your aquarium. Do you have a particular vision to how you want it to look? And inspo pics (and links) you may have would be great, and hopefully may be able to give a rough plan on an interesting scaped aquarium to enjoy.

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I really want it to just be planted with java fern and maybe some moss. Right now I have that piece of wood in, and I added 3 java plants. I'm hoping they grow and cover most of the rank, and I can add some moss that floats along the top and grows down a little. I wanted it to give them plenty of cover.

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The axolotl tank is the one I'm having trouble scaping... I'm just not sure how we want it to look! Right now it's bare besides one hide

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That's awesome! I'm so happy for you!! Great job!! I love looking at everyone's hobbies and tanks

ciaraalston wrote:I really want it to just be planted with java fern and maybe some moss. Right now I have that piece of wood in, and I added 3 java plants. I'm hoping they grow and cover most of the rank, and I can add some moss that floats along the top and grows down a little. I wanted it to give them plenty of cover.

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If you want something to float, moss doesn't really do that (or at least, near to top. Some floating plants may be what your looking for, such as frogbit, red root floaters, water lettuce and salvinia would look nice, with their roots trailing down, providing cover.

Java fern is a great plant, +1 from me . My favourites are mini java (good for the front portion), windolov (once grown in, looks like a lettuce head and very full/lush) and trident (like needleleaf, but with the 'side leaves' gives a fuller appearance. I find mixing leaf varieties of the same plant is a really fun an interesting scape, so it may be something to consider?

ciaraalston wrote:The axolotl tank is the one I'm having trouble scaping... I'm just not sure how we want it to look! Right now it's bare besides one hide

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They do like plenty of cover. So you wouldn't go wrong with something with a good number of plants in one area, open space on the other for feeding/cleaning, with a sand bottom so they dont swallow the substrate and risk impaction.

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