HCA: Hermit Crab Association

last Tuesday I went up to visit Bob at exoticlandhermitcrabs, and we had a great time. working with him in his crab house was an amazing experience, being around that many crabs (a couple of tens of thousands) and helping to feed them. the masses of crabs were simply wonderful and amazing to see, all happily climbing about and interacting with one another:

























there were some really special looking crabs there I wanted to share with you:

a large pink indo:



a large load of Brunnies, which are very sweet and active crabs:





some really beautiful violas:






one of Bob’s many jumbo Es-I had never seen any this big before:



a full armored indo:





And, probably one of the most exciting things for me, the coconut crabs! Max and Minnie:



Max was the larger but definitely less friendly then Minnie:



Me and Minnie:




feeding the crabs was probably one of the most fun things I did…they had a good variety of fresh on top o their normal food, here’s them gorging on some apple:







feasting on fresh coconut:





and French fries!





one of the other amazing things that I got to help to do was to move newly hatched eggs from water dishes into the series of tanks that would nurture them as they grew big enough to take up a shell. I have one of Bob’s captive bred crabs, a blueberry named Tiny Little Agate, and he is as real as he is special (and just newly molted now too!)



so that was my magical trip to elhc! I hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as I had fun taking them.

Caroline

Wow, lots of beautiful crabs!



Thanks for sharing!!

I would love to go there sometime. I am thinking about breeding some of my hermit crabs. Is it possible that crabs can breed in captivity?

Looks like fun trip! Nice lookin crabbies too!

I have some questions for you!

What other foods did he feed them?

Did he make the fries or are they like McDonalds fries? (its a valid question )

And it looks like there are metal food and water dishes....now I thought metals leeched into the water....are they a special kind of metal that he has?

And thank you to you and him for allowing us to see pictures of parts of his enclosure.

OH MY GOODNESS That is what I called a dedicated hermit crab lover!!!! Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much for sharing!!!! I was certainly curious but of course its so different then I imagined...

WOOHOO


Does he often let people visit?

Wow! Thanks for sharing Cute pic of you and Minnie.

Wow, amazing photos! They all look very happy there.

You're so lucky you got to go!

Wow! So many crabs! Thanks for sharing the pics from your visit. And thanks to Bob for allowing us a peek into his world!

wow, Nice. i betchu had a ball, i love the pictures that youve shown us, that jumbo E look verrrrry niiiiiiice. i hope one day ill be able to experience that.

Awesome pictures!!! You're so lucky! It makes me want to get crabs other than purple pinchers.

Wow.. those are amazing pictures!! so delightful to look at. Thanks a ton for sharing them, Caroline!

Also, I find it really cool that he's done captive breeding... I thought it was near impossible to achieve that, but Bob sounds like one serious crabber!! He's doing a fantastic job caring and providing for all those crabbies, and it really shows.. they look very happy and healthy!! Those jumbo E's are so precious!!

Wow! Amazing, just amazing!

Sooooooooooooooo....






...did you buy Minnie? XD

WOW!!!! Thanks so much for sharing the pictures. It was as amazing as I imagined it.

How does he keep the temp and humidity up?