Sunday, June 21, 2015

Hermit Crabs: Not a simple pet

The kid's hermit crabs are doing well but man, do they need more than some gravel, food and water. They can live for 15+ years (some living to be over 30). For anyone thinking of getting one this summer here's what my research has turned up.

 Hermit crabs require:

*Not one, but two types of water (fresh and salt) in dishes deep enough for them to crawl into
*At least 5gals of space for each medium crab
*Sand castle textured substrate twice the depth of the their height
*Humidity above 70%
*Temperature between 70F-80F
*3 shells of the same or slightly larger size than their current one
*a source of calcium and a variety of food including protein

Overall the minimum setup cost for 2 medium crabs was about $100 with minimal upkeep cost. You can feed anything pretty much any fresh food from your kitchen. I'm using (boiled) egg shells as their source of calcium, especially since we go through a lot of eggs.

They are pretty easy for daily care once your have a stable terrarium but getting it there can be a bit of a challenge. On top of that, they are "look at" pets not "play with" pets.

I'm not a fan of crabs, they're really just sea spiders. However, I am surprised by the variation in personality. One of the crabs, "Hermie", is a hider. He prefers to burrow during the day and only come out at night. I rarely see him active. The other, "Hermalina" (Isn't Kev great at naming crabs?), prefers to sleep clinging onto the side of the coconut fiber climbing wall. Hermalina will also walk around more readily and doesn't immediately snap back into her (note: gender totally unverified) shell.