Awww thats a real shame tracie, you had some really handsome guys there, and big too.

I've had mine a year this month, i love them, there so much fun to watch, i keep 18 in one crabitat and 8 new ones in another.

The 18 really get on well together but still split into like family groups with in the crabitat, but its worrying when their molting, i've lost 2 small ones at this time.

spend_day
you'll never see much happening in a pet shop, it stresses them too much and it takes them weeks to get over it once you get them home, but their well worth the time.

i've got a photo gallery
Baywood Critters hermit crabs

or there's more photos here too.

Absolutely Crabulous

I fancy them to be honest, ive seen people use odd things as replacement shells. Duno if i could actually keep them though, im scared of crabs.

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marg your photo gallery is fab

Yeah i know what you mean about the moulting being worrying i lost one of my big ones through a moult but one of my small ones went through it no probs ...........

Lucifus they are fantastic to keep and interesting to watch the only time they would be likely to nip you is if they thought they were going to fall out of your hand.......

Marg (and anyone else) how do you deal with moulting?

I've only got two but I'm going to hit PAH today to see if they have any left. Going to swap their current crabitat for an RUB so looks like I'll be hitting staples too.

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Vase here is some info on moulting hope the link works
http://www.crabbytalk.com

the thing i did when mine moulted was just to leave them alone one mistake is that you go and disturb them all the time ........
And make sure that the substrate that your using is deep enough so that they dont get disturbed from the other crabs

Also never remove the exoskeleton the shred, they need to eat it afterwards to help them build up their strength.

The substrate needs to be 3x as deep as your biggest hermie.

We've built a website for UK land hermit crab owners to help them take care of their hermies, if you fancy a read.

absolutely crabulous UK Land Hermit Crab Info Center - Behaviour


I have to say i love keeping them, their fun to watch, they offer a challenge, and i find them a very rewarding pet to keep.
But molting is defo a stressful time, i've lost 2 small hermies during or just after molting.

tracie you sound like you really enjoyed keeping them, and read loads of info on them, is there no chance you'd have any again?

Vase good luck on the PAH front, not sure many have any hermits left, but if they do have some, buy as many as you can, give them a happy home because PAH really don't know how to take care of them.

Do you all offer salt water too?

I managed to pick two up from PAH. I didnt have enough cash to get anymore but I plan to. I asked them if they were going to stop selling them. They told me that although other stores have they arent going to yet, unless told otherwise.

Funnily enough I was also going to ask you guys about the saltwater thing. Never provided it myself but figured it would be worth looking into.

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Nice one, your lucky most have stopped having them.

Salt water is very important to them, they use it to regulate the water in their shells, it can be the difference between keeping them alive or not. On the site it tells you the measurements of salt to water.
We have a help forum if you need any help or get stuck, we found there was really on USA sites and a lock of uk ones, thats why we set it up, plus PAH hadn't been giving enough information on how to keep them healthy.

I checked on them this morning and I think there was a shell fight as I found a dead crab out of its shell. The others all seem to have either swapped shells or used some that were already in there.

I'll get even more shells for them before I get anymore. I dont know whether it was one of my existing crabs or one of the new ones. They were all a similar size too.

Gutted.

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