~ Hey ~ I Found a 30 gallon tank with no lid or anythign just the tank and the sealer to fix the leak and well i was thinking about germit crabs, so what would i need to get for the hermit crabs and how many would i be able to get?

Thanks!

Hi Dean, first of all, do you know a thing about hermit crabs? Have any idea of their basic care, how they are, what they eat, what their requirements are? You just seem to keep wanting to get new animals constantly without researching a thing about them first.

Hermit crabs are very, very delicate creatures and most of the ones you see for sale do not live long because they do not get their requirements. They are far more difficult to care for than goldfish or tropical fish and did you know they stay buried under the sand most of the time? They will not be out and about like your fish so if you are wanting a pet that you will always be able to see or play with hermit crabs are definitely not it.

I'm going to give you a basic run down on what my hermit crabs require (and keep in mind having a pet is more than just giving it the basic requirements it needs to survive!). They cannot live in those painted shells you see, and they cannot eat the hermit crab pellet food at pet stores. They need both freshwater and saltwater pools, deep enough to submerge in.

I have a 60 gallon with about 13 hermits. I have had most of them for years. Yes, they do live for years, not months as the pet stores and mall kiosks tell you.

• tank and stand (a tank with wet sand can weight as much as an aquarium)

• One pound of calcium-based substrate per gallon, preferably more: (for your 30 gallon) about $30-40

• Glass lids for tank to hold in humidity: $20-30

• Freshwater pool: $15-20

• Saltwater pool: $15-20

• Fresh and organic hermit crab food: I spent about $30 on mine this week. They need a different food each night including a fresh fruit or vegetable and something with protein

• Sea salt mix: about $10-20

• Thermometer and hygrometer (one each for each end of the tank): $20

• heat lamp fixture: $10-15

• Heat bulb: $7

• Hydrometer to measure saltwater content: $20-30

• Hermit crab friendly shells, can be about $2 each, need at least 2-3 per crab

• Moss and Eco-Earth for bedding: about $20

• Dechlorinator for water (CANNOT be StressCoat as it contains a slime coat which will kill hermits): $10

• Climbing branches, driftwood, toys, things to hide in: $20-100

• Spray bottle, not to spray crabs but to spray tank walls to keep humidity up: $5

• Natural sea sponges to keep humidity up: $5

• You also need to study up on the different species as there are many different Coenobita species for sale in the states now. Each one has a different temperament and different requirements.


• You also need to be committed to adding a new food each night and cleaning out the dish from the day before. They also constantly need fresh water and this can take time (you have to mix the saltwater just right).

So anyway, these are just the basics. As you can see there is a lot involved. I strongly recommend reading up on the following sites as you can find out more about their care. I really hope you listen as I feel the members here have given you great advice in the past and you sometimes ignore it. Do not just go out and get hermit crabs because you see them one day and think they are interesting. I have devoted a lot of my time to researching their care to understand them better and I have a lot of friends that have done this as well.

Hermit crabs are not cheap, easy throwaway pets anymore than goldfish are.

http://www.foreverpurple.com/hca/

http://www.hermitcrabaddiction.net/forum/

http://www.epicureanhermit.com/mambo/index.php

Hey Jen,I think you covered it all.Very good posting.I will say that I do know people that have owned them with out all of these items.Unfortunately,most did not live very long.
Definately a pet to NOT consider Dean.

okay what about if i get my mom on with it and she is willing to pay for them and everything each time? Then do you think? What if i do some research and let you guys know? I might have a job so that will help with the fish and the hermies after i do some research and get your opinion of course !

Dean, did you miss the point of my post? I am explaining why this is NOT the pet for you right now!! Look at the trouble you've had with the fish and everything else! These are much harder than goldfish and even tropicals.

Is your mom really going to spend all that money on everything? You have had people from the board donate free things to you so you can keep your fish healthy and everything, and you are going to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a new pet now?

They are time consuming and you will not even see them half the time. They are also not a pet that is to be handled. They cannot be played with like a mouse or rat or something.

Sharon, it is so true that most people don't know what's involved in their care. Did you know that they can live up to 30 years with good care? There are reports of Coenobita clypeatus living up to 25 years in captivity! Most of the jumbo crabs you see at pet stores are 10-15 years old. In the wild their size is limited by the number of large shells they can find, so that is also something that can shorten their lifespan as huge shells are very hard to come by in nature.

Dean,we can not make you not purchase them,we can only advise you from our own experiences to not try them at this point in your life. These are very difficult animals to keep.I truly think that you should stick to your Goldfish and Tropicals right now.They have been enough of a problem for you.
Another thing to realize is just how overwhelming pets can become when you have too many to care for at one time.There are a few on the board that went through disaster's because they just had too much going on at one time.What happens is that you're trying to take care of them all,when in reality they're not getting the complete care that they need.
I know that you're excited with your new hobbie's,but please consider the animal's themselves. We certainly are NOT trying to discourage you here-we are simply saying,Take one small step at a time. You still need to learn the Basic care of fish. When you have achieved that,then it's okay to take it to another level. Hermit Crabs are far down the road for you right now.

okay! I have mentioned to my familt that i want one so i hope noone buys me one for thanks or something! But i will not buy them!

kinda off this topic, but still about hermies.... I read numerous times in my inital hermie research taht stress coat is a super healthy bath for hermies, because of the slime coat, not for their drinking water, but for their bath water... not true?

anyways, Dean, I learned the hard way that hermies cost a TON of money, i decided to get some a year or so ago, and spent well over $200 on just a 10 gallon set-up. they also take TIME and lots of it, with cleaning food and water nightly, finding things for them to eat, and giving them time to roam around outside their tank, where you have to keep a constant eye on them, as they can boogie right outta sight in the blink of an eye. Eventually, I couldnt afford them anymore, or have the time for them I had to give them away to a friend with a huge colony of them. Plus, the hermies from petstores arent always too healthy, as they are incredibly stressed from being wild caught and all the transport, so an inadiquate set-up can push them over the edge very quickly. In addition, they are kinda dull, if you are looking for a high-activity pet. they dont do much of anything in the daytime, their activity usually starts arount the time you would be sleeping. So, save a few hermies from beginner mistakes, and wait untill you have lots more research, and the funds to take care of them. I worked full time, under the table last s ummer, and still didnt have enough to pay for my fish AND the crabs.

okay thanks. i will do some research and maybe in about a year or so i will be ready.

I agree with Smack! I couldnt believe how much I ended up spending on them. Even my 60 is not big enough to really support them.

All hermits are actually wild caught; as of yet there have been no successful breeding attempts in captivity (they have a very long larval period and the larvae are so hard to care for).

Smack, I am really against the idea of regular bathing of crabs. When I started keepign them it was accepted that you give them weekly baths (you;re right, in the stress coat). Then more and more info started coming out that the aloe in the SC could interfere with their modified gills. Also the baths stress them out needlessly. I stopped doing it after a couple times. I now keep the water dishes very deep so they can swim and bathe as needed, themselves, where they dont get stressed out. They have a constant balance of water in their shells and plunging them into fresh or saltwater can rapidly change the balance of the shell water and can stress them out.

Dean, it's good that you've decided to wait on them. They really are interesting pets but not quite what a lot of people expect them to be. You see them at the malls in the brightly colored shells and think, those look fun! But there is so much more to them than that! They are unique in that they are one of the few crustaceans who don't have their own shell (they have a soft, curled abdomen) so taht's why they need to live in gastropod shells for protection. Without the shells they will dry out or be eaten.

Certain species prefer different kinds of shells (the kinds they would find in their natural environments). So it is a huge challenge sometimes finding the shells taht they would like. See the one in the black adn white shell in my sig? That shell was much, much too small for him. He couldnt even pull himself into it so a bird or something could have easily eaten him. He did change shells soon after I took that picture.

huh...thanks for the info on bathing. Actually, I am setting up to get some more again, Ill get a different water pan for them. what would be the best decholornator for them, then? Prime?

edit...get some more once I get my job back!

LOL You can use Prime or Biosafe, which is what I'm using. It has that same sulfur smell as Prime. Those were the only two we could find that didn't include a slime coat stimulator!

actually....prime says it stimulates slime coat.... right on the front of the bottle if im not mistaken.... maybe im thinking of something else, but i swear i just read that the other day.

I personally hate the stuff, but my mom uses it for her betta, so i was reading the bottle.

Then maybe you should mention to them that you're not ready for them yet. That way, no one buys them.

"prime promotes the production and regeneration of the natural slime coat"

is that different then the artificial slime coat SC creates?

Doh! Good catch Christi! Then maybe the Biosafe is the only one that doesn't do it… isnt that funny? My friend and I one day went throguh all the water conditioners in our store and all but the Biosafe said that!

And no, I think all the slime coat stimulators are the same; SC is the only one that has the patent on it I believe.

heh gotta rememer biosafe now next trip to the petstore.

you know that stuff in the bright yellow bottle? I think its tetra or something like that, is that anygood? that is waht I always used for their regular water, or is that a no-no too?

Tetra Aquasafe. Nope, no good. Seems to be as slimy and gooey as Stress Coat!

The thing about the Biosafe is that there is a separate one, Biocoat, with the stimulator. I think it was nice of Marineland to split the two up!

ahh, good, ill use up the aquasafe on the fish then, and get some biosafe for the crabs.

Could you use distilled water as the "fresh water" for hermit crabs and eliminate the use of any water conditioners?

Wow! I had no idea Hermies were that much work! That blows my mind! I agree, you see them in pet shops as 'easy' to care for, but then you talk to someone who has some and see how hard it really is.

Yeah, and the worst part is that they are marketed to kids! (Like goldfish).

I don't know about using the distilled water. It should be okay. I used to use just regular bottled water, like I used in my SW tank, and then got scared that there still may be trace chemicals in it so now I just use the dechlor tapwater.

huh....bottled water may not be too bad of an idea, especially with our water here.... : it eats the skin right off your bones....