buying hermit crabs in painted shells

[Tonys Hermits]

Is it fine to do that I offer only painted shells in my tank

[Geranium]

No. The paint is toxic. It chips and they eat it and it can make them sick.

[Laurie LeAnn]

You can buy hermies in painted shells, you run the risk of them being stuck in them from the paint flushing them in it. Then when get them home put them in the iso tank with other non painted shells and if changes get the painted one out of there. Either use to show off or toss it out the door. They are bad and the paint is toxic.

[Nhcs]

Well it's not known for sure that the paint is in fact toxic. There's no studies on the effect of paint on hermit crabs. The paint does start to chip over time though and hermit crabs being scavengers will eat the paint. Hermit crabs are sensitives to chemicals so eating paint chips in theory wouldn't be good for them. So to answer your question, no it's not safe if you offer your crabs painted shells.About buying crabs in painted shells, I wouldn't recommend it first off the crab is not going to be as healthy as a crab in a natural shell, the crab could have eaten a paint chip and start to die right after you buy it. Also you buying a crab in a painted shell supports the painted shell industry, which is quite cruel towards hermit crabs.

[Crabber85]

Buying hermitcrabs in painted shells only serves to perpetuate the myth that its okay and re-afirms this to the companies repsonisble so we try to do our best by not purchasing hermitcrabs in painted shells and to never purchase extra shells that have been painted.The point that we don't know if the paints are toxic because its never been tested and hence never proven is kind of half true in a sense, the people that should be doing the testing the animal biologists don't care because hermitcrabs are considered insects and as such cheap replaceable toys, this false assumption has only been perpetuated by the shops that sell them because they are fairly cheap about five cents per crab for the store so the store dosen't loose any money on selling you replacements so they win either way.We do have anecdotal evidence to suggest that the paints commonly used on hermitcrabs shells typically oil or latex based do in fact pose a danger to the crabs when ingested because hermitcrabs are so sensitive to chemicals they are the perverbial canary in the mine shaft they will quickly display symptoms of paint toxcity during their molts they typically suffer from molt deformities because the new layer of exoskeleton was prohibited from re-hardening properly due to an excessively high metal concentration in their bodies.The second reason why we tend to boycot painted shells is because of the processes that are used to get hermitcrabs out of their nautral shells and into a freshly painted one.The first method envolves the crabs being essentially baked in an oven until they succumb to heat exhaustion and let go of their shells which then causes them to completely fall out, a lot of hermitcrabs are killed using this method of removal.The second method is when the crabs are placed into a gasing chamber and gased until they become unconsious this method is seriously harmful to them because of the way they inhale and motabilize oxygen they are much like birds in this respect because they don't inhale one breath at a time and consume it instead they concentrate up to a potential of twenty then consume this which intensly compounds the toxins in the gas they just breathed in and causes gill scarring and lasting damage that litterally reduces the crabs life span from thirty plus years in the wild to six months to a year with us.The third method litterally envolves cracking the old natural shell like an egg with a hamer or rock which yeilds the poor crab semi-concious the workers then try to pull the crabs out which fifty percent of the time ends up with the crab being torn in half which happens because hermitcrabs don't readily give up their shells and will allow themselves to be torn apart rather than to give them up.No matter which way the poor crab was extricated from its old shell it will inevitably find its way to a freshly painted shell within mintues of removal and the major problem here is the shells are not fully allowed to dry before the crabs are forced into them and nine times out of ten the paint has been allowed or purposefully sprayed inside the shell where it should never be and this results in the poor crab being painted into the shell 100% stuck for all intents and purposes this effects the crab from its ability to molt all the way to actually switching shells at a later time.No matter which way you slice it painted shells are bad business and bad for hermitcrabs.Painted shells are an eyesore after only a few days in the high temps and humidity of our enclosures as the combination of these two factors causes the sealants used on the paint to soften up which then allows for the paint to chip or flake off and since hermitcrabs like to modify their shells by actively chipping sections off for a more custom fit they will help the flaking process of the paint along at a much faster rate and because hermitcrabs will taste test everything that goes into their enclosure they will eat the paint flakes and there are several horror stories about hermitcrabs attempting to eat paint flakes only to have the flakes get loged into their mouths which litterally caused them to choke to death.If these paint flakes make their way into the hermitcrabs water they toxify the water by releasing a lot of metal contaminants and will also make the water discolored and oily thats sounds like something we would drink right...We see oily discolored water anywhere and we immediately know it to be bad and to be avoided but yet many unsuspecting hermitcrab owners don't even take the time to look at their crabs drinking water on a regular basis and we again can blame this on the bad care info handed out that the stores that are selling them.Oh and if your wondering if there is a safe paint/sealant combo out there that will withstand the riggors of hermitcrab life and be completly safe there isn't any that we know of at the moment even the aquarium decoration grade paints don't last long and they are the only ones remotely considered safe but arent available on the market to the public just yet.A side note anything thats says its glow in the dark should be avoided like the plauge because the paint used to make things glow in the dark contains an irradiated pigment to do this job which makes these items mildly radioactive and completely toxic to hermitcrabs.