HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello, all! Name's Atticus. I'm a pit bull and fish enthusiast. I recognize a few names on these forums from a fish forum I'm active on. Anyway, in February I'm moving to coastal Mississippi. Once I'm all settled in, I plan on turning one of my spare ten gallon tanks into a hermie set up. I've never kept hermit crabs before, but I'm very fond of almost all animals (exclusions include spiders, scorpions, and roaches). I've wanted hermit crabs for a while now, so after I move I want to recognize this wish. I decided to sign up now and do plenty of research before I buy. If space allows, I may sell two of the ten gallons and get a second twenty gallon just for hermit crab purposes (ten gallon set ups seem crowded and I do want to appropriately mimic natural crab life). Presently my twenty gallon is home to a cherry shrimp colony. I'm going to lurk around and learn for a few months, get a good solid plan of action, and then eventually I'll be able to show off new hermies.

Let me be the first to welcome you to the forums and the family here at LHC.com and if you need any help please feel free to ask as that is what we are here for.Ten gallons is the bare minimum size for a hermitcrab enclosure and is great for starting off if you plan on getting tinnies or smalls.The key to picking the right size enclosure to start is to purchase for the size that the crabs will ultimately become which is fairly large about the size of a base ball for most species though there are a couple that will quickly get to soft ball size like the Purple Pincher and the Viola.Based on this consideration a thirty gallon tank is the smallest size you really want to go with if you don't want to be getting a bigger enclosure in a year or so.You will also need to consider how many crabs you ultimately want as three full grown hermits will require a thirty gallon tank but if you want more than that your going to need to add on an additional ten gallons of space per extra crab.I have three ecuadorians and nine purple pinchers all of them are approaching the base ball to soft ball size range so my old forty gallon breeder quickly became overcrowded so two years ago I got a 121 gallon aquarium it was given to me by a friend of my aunt and uncle who was moving and couldn't take the tank with him so I got the tank and a custom hood and stand that he built and now the 121 is my permanent enclosure it will be with me until I get too old to take care of it.lolMost of our members who started off with a ten or twenty gallon quickly realized that the tanks were fast becoming too small and needed to size up to a thirty or forty gallon.This is because hermitcrabs who are on a good organic and varied diet will molt regularly about once every two weeks for tinnies and smalls(Dime to Quarter sized), every four weeks for mediums(Chicken Egg to Golf ball sized) and every two to eighteen months for larges, extra larges and jumbos( Tennis ball to Soft ball size).This means that tinnies, smalls and mediums can effectively double in size every six months or so which will go by very fast.lol

Thanks for the welcome! I'm not sure what species I want to get, but I think I would like to keep smaller species. However, depending on the layout of my new apartment, a larger enclosure may be possible if I take advantage of used set ups and $1 per gallon sales. I do have a 3 foot tank I may upgrade to a 4 foot later. I could use that for a fairly decent set up. My aquariums are all planted. Are there any live (uh, non-aquatic) plants I can keep with hermit crabs besides bamboo? Planted tanks just seem to always thrive better, so I guess I'm thinking planted hermit crabitats have benefits too?I'm planning on using the same stuff I do for my fish:Cholla wood, fresh vegetables and fruits, plants, and frozen foods.

As for safe plants there aren't but a handful and they don't live long at all with hermitcrabs as the hermitcrabs will uproot and eat them in just a few days.I don't know the names of the safe plants right off the top of my head but I do know that Bamboo(Lucky Bamboo) is a big no no because the leaves and meat of the plant are extremely toxic to hermitcrabs.Real bamboo has been proven to be safe but is expensive when avialable and rarely is in the states with most nurseries opting to go for the cheaper alternative which is the lucky bamboo which is a fake look a like.There are two types of real bamboo clumping and running the clumping vareity is seen as a close often times tangled stand of bamboo plants with thick trunks this variety chooses to stay in one place naturally wich makes it a land scapers dream.The running variety uses a root system that sprouts one plant then that plant grows a rizome which is a kind of root that will eventually form into another bamboo plant in this way the plant can quickly overtake a yard and is considered to be a pest plant like Kudzoo in the south.lolAs strange as it sounds not all live aquarium plants are hermitcrab safe some of the exotics plants that originate in South America and Asia have high metal concentrations from the water they were grown in and the food sources they had.Aqaurium plants will absorb about ninety percent of the metals in tap water which is why your supposed to do weekly water changes to keep a fresh inflow of these metals coming into the aquarium but because the water has to be conditioned to make it safe for the fish the conditioner is removing all of these metals basically rendering the purpose of doing a water change just for the plants moot.I have live plants in my twenty gallon fresh water aquarium and have to supplement the plants with a fertilizer once every two weeks or so and these ferts contain a heavy dose of metals like Copper which is toxic to hermitcrabs because the plants need it to survive.Most aquatic plants you can purchase have been raised on ferts so they will have a high chemical load in them the same goes for plants that are grown outside of the water the plant takes in whatever is in the soil its in which can make it very toxic for the crabs.If you want to try go with organically grown as this will cut down on the toxicity of the plants.I do know that hermitcrabs love organic rose petals and whole dandie lions.Any plant you use must be pesticide and chemical free for the safety of your crabs.

Oh I am well aware of the bamboo pest problem. A good two-thirds of my lot is overwhelmed by bamboo. It's ridiculous. Well if live plants aren't feasible, it won't be that big of a deal. I can find other ways to make an enclosure look more natural. As far as the crabs go, I'm looking into Ecuadorians. I think I'll start them off with a twenty gallon (long), get six (too few or too many?) Ecuadorians, and start from there. The place where I'm moving in February is coastal, so there is an abundance of crab shops, but most of them cater to children who will get their painted hermies and keep them in a five liter container. I'm on the search for a more reputable shop in the area. If I were to get hermies from these tourist shops, I imagine they would come with a host of problems I would need to worry about. Plus it's not a rescue if you're still feeding the system.

Ecuadorians are slower growing they molt more often than most of the other species but due to genetics don't get as large as quickly as the native Purple Pincher.PP's are native to the US because they can actually be found naturally occurring from South Miami all the way through the Bahamas which makes them our only domestic species and as a result very abundant in US pet stores, gift shops and curious.E's are not native to the US being south American ranging from the Pacific coast of Mexico all the way to Chile, due to how close they are to us this makes them very cheap for the various pet stores and such here to ship them in and carry them so you will find them regularly in Pet-Co's and local mom and pop pet stores but rarely anywhere else.Gift shops and Curious will often times carry crabs but only the PP so its highly unlikely that you'll find any E's in these places.I have three E's out of my group and they are active all day and all night scurrying all over the tank, they require care that is a little different from that of the common PP as E's don't have the internal mechanism to all for salt retention they have to have constant 24hr access to a dish of high grade aquarium salt water if they go for too long without the salt water they will quickly go still and die.Their temp and humidity requirements are a little more strict they do not tolerate temps below 75 degrees for more than a couple of hours at a time and they need the temp of the enclosure to be kept between 75 and 85 degrees preferring the higher end of the scale.They need a constant humidity of 75 to 85% which is similar to the needs of all known hermitcrab species.Their tank space or size requirements are a little upside down because they are so active they need lots of climbing decor and open space to move around so for three E's your going to need a minimum of thirty gallons of tank.This excessive space requirement is also due to the fact that E's are one of the only species to molt outside of their shells instead of in them so when they burrow down to create their molt pocket they tend to make the pocket larger than other species to accommodate their odd molting behavior so a tank that is to small ie doesn't quite meet the crabs space needs will result in increased risks for molt injuries and deaths due to size restrictions of the molt pockets.E's also need extra special attention to their diet with a constant inflow of pigment enhancers like Beta Carotene, Spriulnia Powder and Astaxanthin these are all high color enhancers the Beta Carotene can be offered through veggies like carrots and squash and the other two can be found in powder form at your local health food stores and sprinkled on the crabs food every day.If you don't do this your E's will quickly begin to look ashy and faded as they loose the color intensity of their exoskeleton.One of my E's came to me from the pet store as white as a sheet and I had to work for months to get the color to come back in its exo turns out its actually a blueish green color and E's can range in exo color from bright red, orange, green, blue, purple and any combo in-between unlike other species they come in a plethora of color variations.

I appreciate all your input, by the way. I'm happy to admit I know very little about hermit crabs except the basic decoration items they need and diet requirements. I've got plenty of time to decide on the more appropriate species for me. Do different species of hermits work well together? I'm mostly familiar with aquatic pets, many of which require large numbers of their own species, which is why I'm asking. I'm going to do a bit more research on species I'm interested in and think about my space options. When I decide on my new house, I'll be better able to decide how large of an enclosure I can have. Which species are best for beginners?

The easiest species to care for by far is the Purple Pincher or PP as its the hardiest species that we know of being able to take a considerable amount of abuse/insufficient care, they have a much higher tolerance for less than ideal temps being able to survive brief dips into the sixties and have a much easier time molting than many of the other species.E's are not as hardy as PP's but are also not as delicate and temperamental as the Blueberry and Strawberry hermitcrabs.Ecuadorians are the gateway species for people looking to get into exotics as they are considered exotics themselves they are classified with the Viola, Aussie, Straw, Blueberry, Ruggie, Indo and Cavie.With the exception of the Straw and the Blueberry the other exotics have very similar care requirements to the E.Not all species of land hermitcrab are going to be excited about the presence of a large dish of water in their enclosure the only two that really actively bathe are the Straw and the E.I believe its either the Viola or the Indo will run from water and will not bathe they will however venture to the waters edge to get a drink when they are thirsty.The only two commonly available species in the US are the PP and E though you may on the odd day find a random Straw or Indo mixed in with the main group at the pet store and this is usually because the stores supplier made a mistake and accidentally shipped the wrong species in with the clients order this happens on occasion and the only way to catch it is to visit the store the first of each month when they get in their new shipments and see what comes in and the earlier you get the crabs from the store the less time they have to spend in the stores horrible conditions which means the crab will be overall healthier coming to you.You can order the exotics from off the internet but buyer beware most of the time the crabs arrive mite infested and sickly and the cost per crab with shipping and handling included can be anywhere from $20 to $60 which makes ordering exotics cost prohibitive for most of us.Yes you can mix in multiple species of hermitcrabs as they all have overlapping care needs so they will easily accommodate each others needs.You need at least two crabs of the same species this is because crabs of different species don't necessarily have the same habits or tendencies so to get the mental and physical stimulation they need they have to have a species buddy this is essential to keeping happy healthy mentally stable hermitcrabs.

Hmm. That's all good information to keep in mind. I appreciate it. I'm no stranger to ordering fish online, and I've come to know several breeders rather well. Obviously this isn't true with hermit crabs, so it's a little different. Given what you've said, I will probably go for a group of PPs, but I do like the idea of the Es, so I'll keep those in mind maybe for later. Would a 20-30 gallon be a good starter for a group of PPs? I think six would be a good manageable number of crabs, but I'm not sure if the size tank I'm considering would be the best size for the first year or so.

A thirty gallon tank is an excellent starter and would accommodate six pp's rather well for at least three to four years respectively.Twenty gallons would also be an ideal starter tank but you'd need to go for pp's in the size range of micro to small which is dime to quarter size range, at this size the crabs will literally molt once a week for the first six to twelve months then will graduate to once every two weeks for the second year and then once a month after that until they hit golf ball size then they start to longer and longer in between molts putting on less girth with each subsequent molt until they reach their full size which is soft ball at that point they will be molting once a year to year and a half and will continue to get thicker in the limbs but you won't see the size increases you were previously.For six small pp's it will take them two years to reach golf ball size with regular molt intervals so a twenty gallon long will last you about two years give or take but a twenty gallon tall will offer the same ground space as a ten gallon keeping in mind that vertical space doesn't count in this instance as they need the ground space to molt as stated in one of my previous posts so the twenty tall will last about six months before they out grow it.If you can always opt for the long version of any size tank that offers it rather than the tall as you'll get added ground space which means the tank can accommodate larger crabs in larger groups for longer.Your welcome for the info, its what I'm here for and I know I tend to be a bit of a chatter box when it comes to hermitcrabs so you'll have to forgive me if I venture on in some posts.lol

Hey atticus welcomr aboard!