Cohabitation?

Clock Jim · Post by **Clock Jim** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:57 am

A new comer with his first posting.History…I live in south east coastal North Carolina near the town of Calabash. I bought my grandkids hermit crabs when they visited me over a year ago at a souvenir store in town. At the same time I bought myself two and put them in a 10 gallon glass aquarium. Now two years later mine seem to be doing just fine. Not so for the grandkids. I enjoy my quiet friends.I did do some internet surfing at first just to get their new habitat started. That’s it. I purchased hermit crab food from the store and two terrarium type dishes for water and food. I buy distilled water and have a sponge in the middle of the dish. The dry food in the second dish. A few shells, sticks and stones, a homemade chicken wire jungle gym for climbing and sand straight from the local beach. No thrills. I have seen them eating and drinking (from the sponge). It been a year now.Now the question. I found a very small brown land crab (unknown species)in the leaf litter at my house, about a good 100 yards from a tidal river marsh area. I put the little guy in with the two hermits. Three day later and all seem well. Problem?

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 3:56 pm

First let me say welcome to the forums and the family here at LHC.com.Secondly its physically impossible for hermitcrabs to drink from sponges as they can not suck water in having no lips they have to pick up tiny droplets of water with their smaller pincher which they use to pass the water to their mouth which is lined with hundreds of tiny hairs that draw the water droplets in via capilary action, they will do this until they have drawn in enough water to satisfy themselves.Its a commmon myth that hermitcrabs can drink from sponges when it actuallity what your seeing is them pinching pieces of the sponge off to eat which is very common and can be easily mistaken with them drinking from the sponge.If the sponge is too large for the dish it will effectively steal most of the avialable water from the crabs holding that water inside itself which is completely inaccessible to the crabs unfortunately.Sponges are like natural petri dishes which makes them one of the worst things to put in your crabs drinking water as they are known bacterial breeding grounds and develop a potent strain of harmful bacteria in as little as twenty four to forty-eight hours after being submerged, the bacteria these sponges breed can cause the water to be toxic enough to kill most pet store fish in twenty four hours after exposure.If your not trading the sponge out every day with a fresh sponge and sterlizing the used sponge adequately then the sponge has likely built up enough bad bacteria that simply boiling the sponge and allowing to air dry wont be sufficient enough to sterilize it any more.My suggestion here is to completely remove the sponge from the water dish as its not really doing anything to provide water to the crabs and is not doing much to keep the humidity in the enclosure stable either.We do offer our hermitcrabs natural sea sponges in dry form usually just placing the sponge on the substrate where the crabs will nibble on it at their leisure as its an excellent source of cellulose or fiber which is a critical nutritional component to molt success and the overall health and well being of the crabs.I definitely recommend checking the ingredients lists on the commercial hermitcrab foods that you have for your crabs because 99% of commercial hermitcrab foods contain one or more of the following toxins ethoxyquin, copper sulfate, ferrous sulfate, bha and bht.All of the above listed ingredients are used in hermitcrab foods like powered, pelleted or flake varieties as preservatives but are actually used more often as industrial grade pesticides which can not discriminate between the insects they are meant to kill and the crabs they are being fed to.It takes a while for the hermitcrabs to build up enough of these toxins in their systems for their molt patterns to be effected or for the crabs to develop accute toxicity and thats because these preservatives are not being regulated by the FDA in hermitcrab food which gives a wide dosage lattitued to the food manufacturer which leads to varying levels of these toxins in different brands and so consequently directly effects how quickly the crabs will succumb to them.We do know the high levels of Ethoxyquin or a lengthy period of exposure causes molt deformities and can even kill the crab during molt and high levels of Copper Sulfate or a length exposure time has similar consquences for the crabs.If the commercial foods your offering contain any of the earlier listed toxins it is advisable to toss them out and switch to something else.Hermitcrabs especially smaller specimens can not actually break apart the pelleted foods and so will abstain from them which leads most of us to either soaking the pellets in some of their water to soften them up or just completely forgoing the food type in favor of the flakes or powdered variety.Another big issue with commercial hermitcrab foods is they typically lack about 60-70% of the nutrients that the crabs actually need leaving a huge nutritional gap in their diet.As for keeping other animals with your hermitcrabs we generally try to avoid mixed enclosures because so many animlas harbor harmful bacteria, viral or fungal infections in their stool which the crabs will eat that its often all to easy for the crabs to become deathy ill especially when introducing reptiles or amphibans into the enclosure.Odds are the little fiddler crab you found wont survive very long with the hermitcrabs as hermitcrabs love to eath each other and other kinds of crabs especially when their diet isn't being completely met.Another thing to condiser is the fiddler crab may end up makig a meal out of one of the hermits should it accidentally find it while its in molt.Personally I'd just put the wild fiddler crab back where it came from but thats just a personal preferrance.lolIf you have anymore questions please feel free to ask as that is what we are here for.

Laurie LeAnn · Post by **Laurie LeAnn** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 4:52 pm

Most of us don't put wire in our tanks because they will rust over time. So many cheap safer things you can buy. Dollar tree has fake silk plants or plastic. Crabs might eat these if thy lack things in their diet. Check out food list on here. You will never need to buy commercial crab food again. But you can use clean clay flower pots on there sides, people go to hobby lobby and get chills wood in craft dept. About 2.99 or 1.99 each rinse in their water first. Get ideas off of you tube crab tank ideas. Don't do the how to set up crab tank because most are wrong. You need to read the highlighted sections in each forum section for healthy happy crabs.

Clock Jim · Post by **Clock Jim** » Mon Jul 14, 2014 11:45 pm

Thank you both for the replies. Crabber85, direct is always appreciated.I will revisit my present set up for the water and food.Are live plants a good thing? I refuse to use artificial.I will visit the other post on this site, to learn even more.Thanks.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:25 am

Live plants are fine to use however there are certain plants that are toxic to hermitcrabs like Luck Bamboo because its not a real kind of bamboo the leaves and the meat of the plant are highly toxic to hermitcrabs.Hermitcrabs are omnivorous and love to eat vegetation so they will quickly uproot live plants and kill them because they eat the plants from the roots up.

crazycrabber · Post by **crazycrabber** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 11:30 am

neat! but keep the crabs seperate, if i were you i would be so excited to get that extra pet! look up brown land crab, and see if you can identify it maybe, if you want to keep it that is.

Clock Jim · Post by **Clock Jim** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 11:16 am

Well it's been 16 day and the small brown crab is doing quite well. I've seen him eating the dry crab food, and sitting on the water sponge and in the pool of water too.The hermit don't seem to mind a bit. So far so good.