Original hermit crab thread close due to maximum posts hit capacity. Refresh your bookmarks.

Lets start fresh from here.



Where to buy hermit crab?
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1. Pet Safari @ Ikano Power Center - lots of it! Size is varied from micro / small / medium / jumbo. @ counter of Pet Lovers Center
2. Pets Family, Taman Megah SS24, beside Ming Tian food court - Approx. 11 Strawberry hermit crabs. RM30/each.



Hermit crabs food for sale at...
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Legend : Shop name, location - product brand + name(price)

1. Betta Discovery, 1 Utama - Crab Worx (RM?)no longer on sale
2. Carrefour, Midvalley - Crab Worx (RM5.50)no longer on sale
3. Pet Lovers Center, Sunway Pyramid - Hikari crab pallets (RM8.50)
4. Pets Family, SS24 Taman Megah (Beside Ming Tian food court) - Hikari crab pallets (Rm8.50)
4. Pet Safari, Ikano Power Center, Mutiara Damansara



What type of crabs currently on sale in Malaysia? (at time of writing)
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1. Ecuadorian Hermit Crab ( Small hermit crab ) RM5 ~ RM8.50
2. Ruggies Hermit Crab ( Medium sized hermit crab ) RM9.90 ~ RM12
3. Strawberry / Purple Pincer Hermit Crab ( Golf sized hermit crab ) RM 15 ~ RM30 ( Price varied from medium to Jumbo )

Note : All price is listed from survey and buying experience. Do not quote on it. Price is varied depends on location.
A rough guide on how to choose / buy hermit crab
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Things should you look out for is grayish legs and blurry eyes if the hermit crab crawls out. That means the crab is about to go through molting. Choose at risk.

It is fine to have the crab close to your hand so that it will come out from its shell so you can have a good look of it.

Most crabs were shy and always in the shell. DO NOT press the hermit crab to force it out, the more you press them, the longer they hide. This build up stress to the crab.

Shell condition is important. Any cracks on the shell is not recommended for new owners as the cracks will bring injuries to the crab's abdomen.

Active crabs is easy to spot, those that crawl up and down are actives. Also active crabs sometimes brings harm. If you are getting anything larger than Ecuadorian crab, don't let it pinch you.

This is important, DO NOT BUY ANY COLORED SHELL crabs. Toxin from the color will gradually infect the crab so avoid totally. It is recommended to get crabs with natural shells.

Related to the point above, you will need to have to buy extra shells for the crabs so get the ones that is the SAME size what that crab is currently wear.


Short pros and cons of keeping hermit crab as pet
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Pros :

They are small, relatively cheap in food, general care and enviroment setup aka. crabitat construction.
Clean and allergic free.
Cute in appearance.

Cons :
Very messy as time goes by.
Unpredictable behavior depends on humidity, temperature.
Stinks badly if the crab died for 36 hrs.
Short life in Captivity. 40 years in nature .vs 4 years in tank.


Future readings
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http://www.crabstreetjournal.com (Packed with articles and a good user experience based advice forum)

More will add in soon..


Additional request
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Do PM me if you would like to see / or have question on hermit crab thread in LYN forum

Information donation needed! If you have any good tips on hermit crabs, post it!
Happy reading and happy crabbing!!

This post has been edited by onscreen: Apr 1 2013, 09:50 PM

wohooooo.. 2500 post reached.. congratualations!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyody here HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!! and long live with your pets

This post has been edited by HoshiGami: Dec 31 2007, 11:26 PM

Before this thread meletup, Happy New Year everyone..

Happy New Year to everyone and hermit crab...Welcome to 2008

Yeah! My crabs celebrate their new year by messing up the whole tank

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Added on January 3, 2008, 10:04 pmBought myself a Ruggie and yet to shift it to the main tank.

This post has been edited by onscreen: Jan 3 2008, 10:04 PM

Wah... Interesting shell! Where did you get it? Got picture from other angles?

IIRC, that shell is from japan. Plastic shell. Correct me if i am wrong.

i help my friend pick up alot of hermit crabs in langkawi

Wow !! hermit crabs are one of my favorite pets. I have kept both marines ones and the land ones before. I will be posting something very interesting about this topic. So stay tuned !

Happy crabbing.

This will be my first time sharing my hermit crab keeeping experience in lowyat. If you are new to land or marine hermit crab can always email me at chiachyuan@yahoo.com. I will to post my answers in this forum for all to see.


My Land Hermit Crab Tank (Terrarium Set Up)
A 2 feet plastic tank, some crush coral sand, a drift wood and water puddle. And about 40 of them inside. Now I am not keeping them anymore due to lack of time to take care of them, i release them back to their natural habitat the beach. I kept them alive and healthy for more than 3 years, I set them free 2 years ago, although some died due to failed molting.

Very fun to keep them and lot's of stuff to learn from them. They are really social creatures. I bought 1 more from a different shop tried introduce a new hermit crab into the tank existing colony. The new one will crawl from 1 end to the other end of the tank, using its antennae to communicate to all the existing tank members, and the newbie hermit crab was very well welcomed and accepted into the colony.

Now I am keeping sea hermit crab. Photos are coming soon.

























This post has been edited by blitzboy: Apr 24 2008, 01:42 AM

Anyone still having hermit crab? I just brought one back from Thailand..hahaha.. Wanna get 1 partner for him..

Go 1u already but dont see the shop open, ikano also..
Going sunway this weekend, any idea which shop is selling now?

More Pics.





Above : Land hermit crabs like climbing, and hang on to high places. It can stay there not moving for hours. It just cling onto the drift wood with most of its body in the shell, and front top view you may never tell whether it is a snail or a hermit crab until you need flip them over gently and look at the shell opening.










Above : This one is the largest and most dorminant one in the tank.


Below : Some medium sized land hermit crab from my tank.
















This post has been edited by blitzboy: Apr 24 2008, 01:32 AM

Hermit crab live in colony of at least 30 up to 100s of them , and their own colony members numbers can actually covers the whole beach stretch for several 100s of meters. They will crawl the whole beach stretch kilometres far from the main colony in search for food. U won't be able to spot them during day because the are hiding from the heat of the sun.

As for your hermit crab, keeping 1 of them will shorten its lifespan. In their natural habitat they lived for more than 30 years. Keeping 1 n only hermit crab is not a good idea , and u should at least keep 10 of them of different sizes in a small tank.

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Added on April 24, 2008, 1:51 amI will post my sea hermit crabs pics soon.

This post has been edited by blitzboy: Apr 24 2008, 01:51 AM

Looks nice! Love the pics! My hermit crabs is way smaller than yours ( Ecuadorian ).

Your substrate looks shallow, do your crab do surface moulting?

How many in the tank? I once have 6, 4 died left to pioneers

you should never keep too many crabs in one tank, they need to have alot of space to grow. so mainly a two feet tank can house about 5-10 growing crabs until adult size to avoid fights and deaths.

Also, you must provide 2 dishes of water for your crabbies, one sea salt water and one normal water, but both must be free of chlorine. CHLORINE can hurt your crabbies.

you crabbie lovers should visit www.hermitcrabassociation.com for further enquiries and learn about hermit crabs all over the world

This post has been edited by nimeewon: Apr 24 2008, 06:37 PM

I thought hermit crabs only do a surface moult if they're under stress?

Anyway, this is sushi. Pretty ain't she?


Attached thumbnail(s)

Not really. The crabs have some intelligent sense when it digs around the substrate. I have an inch deep substrate when i first got the crabs and they did surface moulting until i added another 5 inches of sand and they start digging when they wanted to moult.

Wow, non camera shy hermit crab! cute! >.<

Tip of the day : the shell that the hermit crab is wearing above is Babylonia Spirata, a favorite shell for Ecuadorian and Ruggies hermit crabs.

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Added on April 24, 2008, 8:24 pmWise advice indeed. 4 small crabs died in a 2ft tank for me then i upgraded it to a 4 ft tank, bought 4 new crabs and they are ok now

Adding your provided link to the starting topic

This post has been edited by onscreen: Apr 24 2008, 08:24 PM

Yes that's what i am actually doing. For a 2 feet tank, i put in a drift wood for the crabs to climb, to make use of the extra space above the gravel, so they are some on the wood some walking on the gravel and some at the corners of the tank. I constantly take them out of the tank and let them walk around a limited floor area in my house, to let them exercise. After that you need bathe them in filtered water, that is left over 1 to 2 nights to get rid of the chlorine.

As to if they fight among each other? From my observation and a few years keeping hermit crabs, they hardly start fights. The dorminant hermit crab will normally get its rights over most 'things' inside the colony, like shells, food, walk path, and hiding spot. Should they really confront, the weaker one just defend itself by hiding into its shell, and rarely they harm each other in a colony.

This post has been edited by blitzboy: Apr 24 2008, 08:54 PM

Eh... I also let them walk around my living room. They only like to walk anywhere with a wall, cupboard, or something behind them. Rrely they will walk on their own. but sometimes spotted Sushi and Wasabi on the Carpet also. Sometimes Wasabi will climb the curtain also. Unagi too.

Wasabi is the dominant one. When it comes to fighting ar... Hmmm... When 2 of them want the same shell which I scatter on the living room floor, Wasabi will do a kind of kung fu or taekwando move and push the other away. I think she has jealousy issues also because the moment she see someone wants a shell, she wants it too.

And yar, Sushi likes that shell so much she always changes back to it.

Fighting is rare for my crabs.. dominant one? Its all of it, since everyone have the same favorite spot. Once all the crab wanted to be on the same spot, they would just climb up on each other. Food sharing is a problem, sometimes they push around, sometimes and tear abit and hug it.. still never see them fight.

btw Jamien, you name all your crabs sushi related? Cant wait to see Tamago and Tempura to be added in the family :P

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Added on April 24, 2008, 9:48 pmI did recommend all tanks should have a "second floor" for the crabs, I had mine build with drift wood and artificial vein that hooks up to the tank's cover so that they would climb upside down whenever they want ( of cause having the lid close tight )

Alternative solution is to use hemp net to make extra space above.

This post has been edited by onscreen: Apr 24 2008, 09:48 PM