land hermit crabs

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evelyn80

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Aug 10, 2008
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saw some hermit crabs in a sandy bottom tank with a water dish in it. are they really only land creatures? how big do they get? wat do they eat? wat size tank do they need? thinkin of getting some if i could, thanks guys!
 

sinner41265

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I have somewhere between 6-10. I'm not sure, because there's always some buried.

Whatever you keep them in, you should be able to maintain 70-80% humidity. This will mean a 10-20 gallon aquarium (long is better)

You can use either play sand (moistened with salt water to sand castle consistency) or Eco-Earth (moistened with 80 oz. of salt water to the brick)

Keep your temperatures in the 75 to 80 degree range. Under tank heaters or reptile daylight/moon glow bulbs or a combination of both will help to achieve this.

Put things in the tank for them to climb. They're known as "tree crabs" in the wild.

There are plenty of commercially prepared foods for them, but you can also feed them things from your kitchen.

There are several good hermit crab sites and forums on the web. Check a few of them out.
 

leeser28

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I have had several until recently. I think Sinner covered all of the bases - just remember that even though they are "hermit" crabs, they actually don't like to live alone.
 

Susan0218

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PPs gave you some great advice. If you do offer commercial foods, skip ones with Ethoxyquin or cooper sulfate. (personally I don't feed commercial foods) A few great sites that come to mind are hermit-crabs.com, thecrabbagepatch.com (in the process of switching their name over to the hermit crab patch), and thehermitcrabassociation.com. The only other thing I'd add is all species of land hermit crab benefit from both a fresh water dish/pool and a salt water dish/pool available at all times.
 

sinner41265

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Mondo grass should be safe with them. If it's generally pet-safe, it's probably ok with hermit crabs, too. You might want to check with some of the hermit crab sites. They have lists of safe and unsafe terrarium plants to put in crabitats.
 

evelyn80

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Aug 10, 2008
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got my tank today! puttin sand in later today and the rest of my equipment then off to the lfs for my crabs and some food for them! do they eat brine shrimp pellets do yas know?
 

Susan0218

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They can eat brine shrimp. I'm not sure about the pellets though. You should ask about the mondo grass over on one of the hermit crab forums and/or check their safe and unsafe food lists.
 
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