HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I know I'm going to have to order some food from somewhere. I've gotten the advise that the stuff I have isn't very good. My husband put in some flake fish food the other day (the stuff we have for guppies). Well, it got eaten. Is this OK? My hubby says they won't eat it if it isn't good for them.I believe I've read that the food from the crab addict store is the best. Is this correct?

Don't know about the fish food but stuff from Hermit Crab Addiction Store is AMAZING! Can't go wrong there in my opinion. Or Hermit Crab Patch has a Crab Kibble that's a great food, too. I have a tool box full of stuff from both places - supplements, mixes, etc.

Oh and...Crabs eat anything - their like toddlers! - whether it's good for them or not!And the reason there's no simple answer to the question "what should I feed my hermit crabs?" Is because they're designed not to eat the same food again right after they eat it the first time. So you have to mix it up and give them variety. Somebody did a study about it. Anyway, for hermies and food: change is good!AND rather than buying a premixed food you could totally feed from the food list and probably give them all they need. It's just more work so a nice basic food (or two - variety!) is handy. If you did want to do "home cooked" make sure they get protein 6 days per week, veggies 4 days, fruit a few times per week and supplement with sources of the other things they need (chitin, calcium) and they need weird stuff like dried leaves or mangrove meal or bark or moss or spirulina or honey occassionally. That is Sara's Super Simple Home Cookin For Crabs guide! It's not perfect but it's a start...

Thanks for replies. I will use the toddler analogy with my husband.

They remind me of toddlers a lot. They put everything in their mouth. They're messy. They never want to eat when it's "dinner" time. They ignore toys you get them and play with things that aren't supposed to be toys. At least they can change their own diapers!

Hermit crabs cannot not identify or recognized man made ingredients like ethoxyquin and copper sulfate so they just eat is because the know that it's food. Almost all fish food I've seen has ethoxyquin or some other thing dangerous for crabs. Check the ingredients list on it for ethoxyquin or copper sulfate. Those are bad for them. I got a jar of shrimp at the pet store that's meant for fish and the crabs love it. It contains nothing bad for them and is a great source of protein. When I get a chance I'll post the name of it.

Jimmy is right nearly all fish food will have ethoxyquin, copper sulfate or both in them making them unusable for your hermitcrabs and even questionable for use with your fish.

Just looked, ethoxyiquin is the last ingredient on the fish food. Looked on the FMR crab food and copper sulfate is the 8th ingredient.

They'll both need to be tossed unfortunately.You can use the new HBH hermitcrab variety bites as this commercial food is safe to use every few days or so.