Hermit Crabs are Being Tortured: Learn the Truth Today

I’m a owner myself. I own 8 hermit crabs for the last 2 years and all healthy. People mostly see them in colorful shells at the mall or in a souvenier shop in florida or somewhere in the tropic area. It’s there colorful shell that first attracts you to them. But not many people know that colorful shells can actually kill your newly bought hermit crabs. Avoid buying colorful shelled hermit crabs at all cost. If you do end up buying a painted shell hermit crab always provide un painted shells a little bit bigger than the current shell for them to change into. 

People usually buy them and put them in a one gallon tank which is way to small. They need at least a 10 gallon tank and with buddies! Never buy them alone, in the wild they travel in groups of hundreds buying one will make it depressed and lethargic. Also for a subtrate dont use gravel becuase it does not provide them a place to molt. They cannot dig in gravel. Calci-sand is also a bad choice it clumps up and they can barely dig in it. The best choice would be eco earth and play sand. Both are fairly cheap and the crabs love to play in them. when you first buy hermit crabs make sure you have you tank already set up so you can put them in right away and let them start in the destressing proccess. They need to destress for the first couple of months becuase they were kept in bad conditions at the pet store or souvenier shop. You will need a humidity guage so you know how humid it is in the tank. The humidity needs to be at 75% no lower than 72% and no higher than 80%. The subtrate also needs to be at least 4 inches high so the hermit crabs can dig in and form a molting cave to molt. But when you first buy them and they dig in the subtrate dont think they are molting they are just destressing. Even though they are down there for a really long time do not dig them up! This will make them for stress and might kill them because they are trying to destress. I learned this from experience.

Hermit crabs eat a variety of food in the wild becuase they are scavengers. But at home you will need to provide all the nutrients they need. Such as cuttle bone for calcium, dog food or cat food for protien, and fruits and vegitables for vitamens. Don’t feed them too much becuase they dont eat much. Also clean the food bowl everyday to avoid a smelly tank and so the crabs don’t eat spoiled food. Also provide a water bowl with dechlorinated water, not tap water. Also hermit crabs a have been seen drinking salt water so you also need to provide that. Not salt water made by adding table salt to water. You can obtain salt water made for hermit crabs at your local fish store.

EXTRAS: You should also provide your hermit crabs with tons of things for them to climb on such as driftwood or cholla wood. You can buy these at your local pet store.