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

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

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

At the moment hermit crabs both land hermit crabs and sea hermit crabs are not available in aquarium shops.

According to some traders, land hermit crabs aren't difficult to keep for hobbyist. However to them(the petshop business owners), it is a business environment where there are many other pets for sale in their shops, therefore keeping hermit crabs alive and healthy seems to be an easy task, will also add loads to the everyday business operations. Resulting high death rate to the hermit crabs before they can be sold to customers.

Therefore resulting hermit crabs livestock is a "ONE OFF" business. Meaning the livestock arrive at the shop for sale, when it is sold out, then that's it. Try your luck in waiting and hoping for another batch of livestock.

Some hermit crabs are sold to real experience keepers like us, the crab happily live and blend in to our home environment, while others are sold to parents as a gift to their kids may result to improper care and the hermit crab die from stressful and non-adaptive environment that is cruel.

As for me, releasing them back into the wild, gives me a happy memories. I released them at night, and seeing them crawling on the beach rejoining other hermit crabs colony in that beach is really an experience that money can't buy.

This post has been edited by blitzboy: Apr 25 2008, 10:54 PM

You mean that shop that links with Eneos car care shop, on the lower floor ,right ? Yes they do sell hermit crabs. As I said before unlike some pets that are regularly available, hermit crabs are not always available in pet shops. One my last visit to that shop, they only put up the shells on the display, no more hermit crabs for sale. That was somewhere in March 2008.

This post has been edited by blitzboy: Apr 26 2008, 09:50 AM

Some pics of my marine hermit crabs.

Photos are blurry due to algae growing on the tank glass.
Algae are also natural food to the hermit crabs.

Some are open for adoption for a small price. For more information please click here.









This post has been edited by blitzboy: Apr 28 2008, 02:52 AM

for land hermit crab, yes algae is is problem because it makes the tank dirty.


however for sea hermit crab, it also sometimes feed on the algae

i think those sold at pasar malam are land hermit crab. Normally they are quite hardy and able to survive harsh conditions.
At the beach, it is full of sand and it is very cold at night and very hot at day, still land hermit crabs are able to survive.

Pls share with us a photo of how your hermit crabs are kept at your home?

This post has been edited by blitzboy: May 4 2008, 03:59 PM

If you go collect sand from the beach be sure to collect the sand from the very clean beach and not from those beach filled with rubbish made by those irresponsible people.

Collecting beach sand is a good idea to built a crabitat that closely replicate hermit crab's natural habitat. It will be a good also to stick an aquarium fan on the top edge of the tank to produce aireation, because hermit crabs do respond to sea breeze in its natural habitat. I believe the windy condition has a positive effect to keep the temperature low, and not too warm or too humid, and your hermit crabs are always active.

This post has been edited by blitzboy: May 14 2008, 01:43 AM

Hi onscreen.
Thanks for supporting my idea. i wish to invite all hermit crab lovers & keepers to try out this simple experiment.

1. First take one of your hermit crab out from it's crabitat.

2. Held it in your hand, and the hermit crab normally will be hiding in the shell.

3. Now, try blowing some air into the opening of the shell. Blowing it little by little from your mouth.

4. The hermit crab will react to the wind entering shell, and the wind passes through its legs. In a matter of seconds the hermit crab will show itself and try to free itself from your grip, because you are holding its shell.

This post has been edited by blitzboy: May 15 2008, 12:37 AM

I will recommend the aquarium fan that you buy it comes built in with a switch for ON/OFF.

The hermit crab natural habitat on the beach, has winds that is not constant and varying wind speed. You can replicate this condition by having a fan fitted to the tank, and only turn it on occassionally.

The fan don't need to be ON all the time. However it is better to have the fan ON during a very HOT day, to keep the condition in the tank cool.

For keeping land hermit crabs.

You need 2 dish of water. 1 dish for fresh water and 1 dish for saltwater.

When i used to keep hermit crabs, i give them filtered water that is left over night before giving to them. And the salt water mixture I mix it with sea salt , the brand is Red Sea, at salinity of 1.023 to 1.025 specific gravity, same as the sea water.


Land hermit crabs drink more fresh water than saltwater. So be sure to have more fresh water for them.

Hi there i appreciate that comments.

I had placed more sand in the tank. than you saw in the pic. It was because the crabs dig dig and dig so the sand becomes very uneven, some corners of the tank have higher ground level.

Yes I have 40+ hermit crabs. Do that tank looks overcrowded?

It is because the hermit crabs i keep mostly are small to medium sized ones, and most of the time i am always watching them, and handling them. Only a few are large sized ones. I kept them this way for 3 years, they are all healthy, although some died in the molting process; i released them back to the beach.

That water puddle is freshwater, and i have a smaller dish for saltwater, not so visible in the picture, it is behind that drift wood.

If there is no aireation, the tank sometimes smells due to hermit crabs excrement and dampness. The air movement not only keep cool, and also can help reduce foul smell. If you on the fan all the time surely it will be dry inside the tank. You don't have to keep the fan ON all the time.

And I now no longer keeping land hermies, because no time to take care of them, now I am keeping marine hermies and i set up 1 saltwater aquarium just for them.

1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Papaya
4. Honey
5. Weetbix !!!
6. Corn (cooked ... from corn in the cup seller)
7. Fresh grated coconut
8. Dried shrimps
9. Hagen CrabWorX
10.Bread

You menu of food for the hermit crab is already very complete. Add Hagen CrabWorX and bread to the list.

However, you feed them corn that cooked from the corn in a cup seller,
normally cooked with butter (oily substance) not advisable to feed the hermit crabs oily food.
Land Hermit crabs breath with modified gills that can breath air when remain moist. Oily substance
can kill it, if it got into the gill chamber, mixed with the moisture inside, due to disrupted breathing.


You can buy fresh sweet corn from the market,
peel of the leave and scrubs cleanly and wash in tap water, and wiped it dry with clean cloth.
The cut the corn out into cilinder shaped blocks. Feed them raw sweet corn.
Feed them 1 block and keep the rest wrap up in plastic transparent food wrap,
in the fridge for next feeding in future.
You should see how the hermit crab pluck the corn from the stem. Interesting to watch.
You can collect the stem later, when they finished plucking off every corn seed from the stem.

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Added on May 20, 2008, 1:15 amhyrl

You tank looks very nice. Looks like you even have a tray for them to select the empty shells. More like a wardrobe for them.

When i used to keep hermit crabs , the empty shells are littered every where in the tank. LOL.

This post has been edited by blitzboy: May 20 2008, 01:16 AM

noob question here...

what are ruggies?

any pic for how the timed fan is attached to the tank?

This post has been edited by blitzboy: May 21 2008, 04:34 PM

This is sea hermit crabs in my newly set up marine aquarium. Taaa daaa...........

Notice one of them is the largest at size of a tennis ball.

Please lower your sound volume settings, because the surrounding background noise is very loud. Thank You.


This post has been edited by blitzboy: May 28 2008, 01:08 AM

yeah colored shell are nice to see , but not good for the hermit crab's health.
colored shell are painted, and the chemical composition in the paint is toxic to the hermit crab.

This post has been edited by blitzboy: Jun 4 2008, 01:53 AM

call for all hermit crabs keepers in lowyat.net ...
anyone keeping marine hermit crabs like me ... pls post your pics here...
and let's share knowledge...

i have marine ones... like the one in the video.....