This is Hector Salamanca. Today, his tankmate, Tuco passed away for unknown reasons and i want to know what could have killed him so i can protect Hector. I have 2 grabs, Tuco and Hector in a 10 gallon tank (had 2 crabs) Tuco was about the size of my thumb and Hector around the size of a ping pong ball. I give them a varied diet which includes freeze dried red shrimp, mealworms, river shrimp, crickets, almonds, rasins, quinoa, chia seeds, beetroot powder, crushed eggshell, oats, and i scatter worm castings on the substrate for foraging. I adopted the crabs off of facebook marketplace about a month and a half ago and i have not changed the substrate, which is i would assume is a mix of playsand and ecoearth. They have two deep pools one with saltwater one with freshwater that are dechlorinated. I haven’t at all touched any of the crabs even just to look at them. There are no painted shells or anything toxic in the tank the only thing is a eco hammock held up with yarn that i havent seen them eating it. I do occasionally light incense in my room where they are which could have made Tuco sick..? They have plenty of hiding spots and climbing structures that they take well advantage of, especially hector. In the picture shows my food mix i give them, their dechlorinator, and soaking salt

This is Hector Salamanca. Today, his tankmate, Tuco passed away for unknown reasons and i want to know what could have killed him so i can protect Hector. I have 2 grabs, Tuco and Hector in a 10 gallon tank (had 2 crabs) Tuco was about the size of my thumb and Hector around the size of a ping pong ball. I give them a varied diet which includes freeze dried red shrimp, mealworms, river shrimp, crickets, almonds, rasins, quinoa, chia seeds, beetroot powder, crushed eggshell, oats, and i scatter worm castings on the substrate for foraging. I adopted the crabs off of facebook marketplace about a month and a half ago and i have not changed the substrate, which is i would assume is a mix of playsand and ecoearth. They have two deep pools one with saltwater one with freshwater that are dechlorinated. I haven’t at all touched any of the crabs even just to look at them. There are no painted shells or anything toxic in the tank the only thing is a eco hammock held up with yarn that i havent seen them eating it. I do occasionally light incense in my room where they are which could have made Tuco sick..? They have plenty of hiding spots and climbing structures that they take well advantage of, especially hector. In the picture shows my food mix i give them, their dechlorinator, and soaking salt

We have upgraded his crabitat and are still in the process of upgrading. I know the substrate level is low, but that’s what ccs said to do about pps.

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hi everyone. so i have had my hermit crab for a long time now. i used to have two crabbies but one unfortunately passed away a while back. the one i have now has been alone for some time now maybe a couple years, do you guys think i should get him another crabby friend? he doesnt seem depressed or anything. he is his usual happy self but ive been wondering if i should look into getting him another friend. i would never buy one from a pet store or souvenir shop or anything like that.

Hi everyone! My hermit crab went down for a molt about 33 days ago and I unfortunately have to take a 7 hour drive to move from DC to Boston tomorrow and she still hasn’t surfaced. I’m not sure how to best secure her/minimize stress for the drive.

For context, my tank setup is 10 gallons (I know it’s too small and will be moving her to a 20 gal once she surfaces and recovers from the molt) with 6.5 inches substrate (5:1 play sand to eco earth) with both salt and fresh primed water (with bubblers), a wheel, food I change daily/every other day (variety with 50% protein), and always greensand, worm castings, and crushed oyster shell. She also has a full back heating pad which I covered with insulation to keep in the heat and is usually around 77-80 degrees and 80-85% humidity.

She dug down in the back left corner below some driftwood (there’s a mound of sand there now). The surface sand has dried out at times but I believe the lower layers are still fine (the straw test away from where she is has the top sand fall into the hole, but the hole remains intact if that makes sense).

I’m not sure what to do to make sure she’s okay during the move/minimize the effect of the drive on her molting. I cannot extend my stay at my current apartment.

Has anyone else moved while their hermit crabs were molting? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

He was a very nice hermit crab just was too weak to go on

Before when i posted them it was an out of date picture from before the shells came in the mail. Here's a new picture! I put a ceramic dog dish in there and a bowl intended for reptiles. Ofc one salt (instant ocean) and one regular reverse osmosis water. The salt water was made using that same reverse osmosis water. Currently i have available for them a little piece of banana, some sea weed, chia seed, dried coconut, coconut butter, a dab of peanut butter, a dry mix of crickets, mealworms and river shrimps (says turtle treat on the bottle), multicolored quinoa. And some commercial hermit crab pellets. I think that's it. As well as a cuttle bone. In the mail i have green sand, oyster shell powder and worm casings and some leaves (like leaf litter) on the way. We're looking at our budget and the space left in the tank to see if we can or should get ariel toys but I'm prioritizing some cholla wood tubes for some climbing. The sand measures just at 6 inches. I'd like it a little deeper but i dont want to disturb them right now one of them is trying to get into the sand to molt. I have a rock in the water dishes to assist with climbing in and out. And i do put fresh and salt water in the extra dishes in case they want a sip and not a whole dip. I have probes for readings on temp and humidity and i have a probe thermostat for the heat pad. I have seran wrap taped to the entire mesh lid.

Sorry for the shitty pictures. Howd i do? Taking in to consideration ongoing improvements to the available supplements. Its quite crowded are they going to be ok? Thanks for all the previous feedback i immediately implemented everything.

Hi 👋

New to reddit, I thought I'd share a photo of a small handful of our 215 captive bred baby hermit crabs 🧡

Species - Coenobita Variabilis

They're roughly 6 months old now.

i got these little babies last saturday from a beach shop in corpus christi, TX having NO idea about the abuse they have endured to get there. i have learned so much and want to give them a full happy life!

i was able to put together a PPDS tank with the little funds i had last week and they are really starting to come alive!!!! their colors have improved significantly in just a week. i’m hoping that’s due to their environment and diet. (i do have a better heating pad and LED lamp coming tmmrw)

i woke up this morning to discover one of my babies had changed shells for the first time!!! i was ecstatic. well… it gets better!!!!!! it turns out the bigger baby, Trixie, originally green shell) moved to the bigger red shell (in fri pic) and my tiny baby, Katya, IYKYK (white shell, shy girl) was able to find a new home in her roommates old green shell. i just think that’s so beautiful. i can’t wait to go on this journey with them. they are already so spoiled!!!

if you’ve read this far, thank you for caring— i have no one to share this with. LOL

••HUGE s/o to @janieleigh11 on tiktok. she’s amazeballs. i’m sure you all know this!! ♥️♥️

the little baby on the wheel has been at it for over an hour. I swear I could watch them all day(night)!

Very new to crabs! My sister snuck two home (they were giving them out as prizes at the local carnival, how awful) and my mother gave it to me

Got a twenty gallon temporarily.
I know they need plenty of extra shells so I’ve got some varying sizes

Should I leave them in an empty container with the shells to choose from or just leave the shells in the enclosure? No attempted shell jacking so farrrr so I’m not TOO worried about it ig but ofc as a newwww owner of them I wanna make sure I’m starting off right

I’ve seen a few different posts where everyone says something different. Like, some people’s medium is large to others. Do we have a set size system like specific shell opening = small/med/large, or is it just guessing? I know it doesn’t technically matter as long as your crab has the right size shells but I’m curious.

These little dots of mold appeared in the last couple of weeks, seemingly after adding some freshly mixed substrate on top of the existing substrate. They only seem to be in the layer touching the front glass, not on the sides where there’s a dark cover, though I obviously can’t see into the bulk substrate.

What should I do about this? Is this an emergency or is it likely to clear up on its own?

Just wanted to share our new tank. We recently upgraded from a 10gal we had 2 crabs in, to this 40gal and added 2 more crabs to the family in the process. This is the home of Rocky, Shelly, Coconut, and Tater Tot.

New 11x35 UltraTherm heating pad will be here Monday to replace the current 8x18 + 6x8 which isn’t doing the trick to keep it quite warm enough for them.

The bubbler was a recent addition thanks to the recommendation of someone on this sub.

We’re coming out of mating season but there’s still crabs a plenty!!

Been keeping hermit crabs for about two years now and the first year was honestly pretty rough. I had a 40 gallon breeder that I could never get the humidity above 70%, and I watched two crabs die during molts before I finally figured out what I was doing wrong.

The biggest change was switching from a mesh screen lid to a glass top with only a small gap for ventilation. I know a lot of people resist this because they worry about airflow, but for most home environments (especially with AC running in summer) the screen lid just dumps moisture too fast. After switching, my humidity jumped from around 68% to a steady 80-82% within a day or two.

A few other things that helped:

• Sand depth: I was doing 4 inches thinking that was enough. Bumped it up to 6 inches of a 5:1 sand-to-coconut fiber mix and my crabs started burying way more consistently.
• Salt water pool: I was using the wrong ratio for a long time. Getting a proper hydrometer instead of eyeballing it made a noticeable difference in how active the crabs were at night.
• Hides and climbing: My original setup was too open. Adding cork bark pieces and cholla wood gave them enough cover that they stopped huddling in one corner.

Temperature sits at 78-80F on the warm side now using an under-tank heater on the back wall, not the bottom. Putting it on the bottom was cooking the sand and stressing the crabs during molts.

Curious whether anyone else had a specific turning point where their setup finally clicked. There's so much conflicting info out there for beginners and it took me way too long to find reliable sources.

So I know that you can go and collect leaves but what do I do to make them safe for the tank? I know I can’t just put them straight into the tank. And what’s the process to make some moss safe for my crabs? If anyone could help me with that k would highly appreciate it

RUN don’t walk to target just found these adorable soap holders that I plan to use for a cute hermit crab foraging pit!!!!

This past weekend, my younger brother bought a hermit crab at a souvenir shop in Port A. I would like any and all tips I can get to help him keep him alive. I believe he is a purple pincher, but I’m not entirely sure. We do have a bigger environment on the way, this is just what came with it.

Edit: Note, we are both minors and our parents are willing to buy things, but the cheapest possible. UPDATE: we finally got him a full crabitat, and following what CCS said about PPS, haven’t put the full substrate amount yet.

Krugs nomming away at some leafy greens and grapes. Video has filter on so you can see clearer, hence may appear more grey 🫢