I've been lurking around this forum for a while now and decided it was finally time for me to introduce myself, so Hello! I am a 21 year old female still living at home on a small hobby farm in Ontario, Canada. I am a huge animal lover and am currently going to school to become a Vet.
I am new to Hermit Crabs and currently own 3. The first two came to me on a bit of a whim. My 14 year old cousin, who practically lives with me, had wanted to get one for a few months now. He talked about them all the time, and was doing all sorts of research on them in preparation of asking his parents permission when I discovered that a local pet store was going out of business and selling everything. The next weekend we went back to get some Aquarium supplies so my Cousin got permission and bought the entire Hermit Crab setup with 2 crabs for $30. After bringing them home, my cousin decided he wanted to keep them here and offered me “shared custody” which I gladly accepted. A week or so later he brought over a third crab.
Their current setup is an exo-terra terrarium (12”x12”?) with front opening doors, it originally came with a gravel substrate, which we promptly replaced with eco-complete as well as the food and water dishes and some decorations.)
We have had them for about 2 weeks now and so far we are enjoying the little guys, however there is one thing that is beginning to concern me which is ever since we switched their substrate to eco-complete they have buried themselves and haven’t been up since, once we added the third crab it did the same thing. I know they are supposed to be nocturnal and don’t come up much during the day, but I am a bit of a night owl myself and often check on them during the night but it doesn’t seem like they come up at all. They don’t appear to be eating either. We have dug them up twice just to make sure they were still alive(especially since the original two both came to us with missing limbs) and tried offering them some food but they wouldn’t take any of it. Is this normal? When should I be concerned? Is there anything I can do to entice them to eat? If anyone can over any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated!
Now to introduce the crabs!
First are the original two. I have no idea what kind these two are so if anyone wants to make a guess that would be awesome.
This is the smaller of the two. He only has three legs and is bit more outgoing of the first two.
This poor guy only has 2 leg, and they are on the same side.
Unfortunatley I don’t have any decept pictures of the newest guy on my laptop right yet but I will be sure to upload them once I can get some. I am fairly certain he is a Purple Pincher. All of his legs are bright red with the exception of his biggest claw, which is purple.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this, it came out a bit longer than I was intending. I am excited to be a part of this community and am looking forward to getting to know everyone.
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