Hermit Crabs and Kids

Do Hermit Crabs make good pets for kids?
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This is a tricky question. It’s true that hermit crabs are marketed toward children, especially the ones found in tourist shops and in mall kiosks. Brightly colored painted shells jump out and grab the attention of anyone who walks by, but especially children. What kid isn't attracted to a Sponge-Bob shell and the strange creature living inside it. Store employees are quick to assure a questioning parent that they require very little care, almost no supplies, and can live inside a very small kritter keeper. Soon you are walking out with a new crab in a small plastic box and a very big problem.

The ideal age for a younger person who wants a hermit crab is 10 and older. However, every child is different and you would do better to watch for clues that your child would be a good crabby care giver rather than base the opinion on age. I’ve known good crabbers as young as 8 and bad crabbers of all ages. It really depends on their personality.

So what kind of kid goes well with hermit crab caregiving?

Kids who are interested in science and biology (not a requirement but definitely a bonus. These types of kids seem to work out best.)

Kids who aren’t put off by a hermit crab that will disappear for weeks at a time or who may not like being handled.

Kids who can maintain a care regiment that includes a varied diet, cleaning and maintenance, and monitoring humidity and temperature. (Or a parent who is willing to do it themselves.)

Hermit crabs are often pushed on parents as the easier version of the hamster. Nothing could be further from the truth. It would be much more accurate to categorize a hermit crab with other exotic pets like birds and lizards. In fact, I believe that iguana care and hermit crab care are very comparable. While you may be told that hermit crabs rarely live longer than a month or two, there are many hermit crab owners who have crabs as old as 4 or 5 years. Hermit Crabs in the wild can get to be up to thirty years old, and even older.

A Hermit Crab is an advanced-level pet if you are dedicated to providing the proper care. In my many years of pet care, I have found that one of the biggest myths is that there are any animals that requires almost no care, except perhaps the pet rock. This is true for goldfish, Bettas, and especially Hermit Crabs.

If your son or daughter is thinking of becoming a hermit crab caregiver, consider adoption rather than purchase. Hermit crabs are harvested from the wild. Yes, that hermit crab you saw at the pet store was on the beach in the not-to-distant past. Go to www.crabstreetjournal.com and sign up as an adopter. Post on your local Freecycle. Contact the Humane Society and leave your name and number. There are a lot of unwanted hermit crabs out there who need a loving, knowledgeable home. All it takes on your part is a little bit of patience.

If you just can't wait to get your Hermit Crab (and a few buddies) and must purchase them. Stay away from crabs in painted shells. The stress that a crab undergoes in the process of harvesting and then forcing them into painted shells diminishes your changes for Hermit Crab success. Shop around. Find crabs in natural shells. Your hermit crabs will be happier and healthier for it.

Before You Bring Your Hermit Crab Home

Do Hermit Crabs make good pets for kids?
Naturally Crabby has moved, find this article and more like it at http://www.naturallycrabby.com


Before You Bring Your Hermit Crab Home
Also titled (I already brought him home, but now I need to fix the problems!)

The best way to go about adopting a hermit crab is to set up and stabilize your tank first, and ,then go get your hermit crab. However, that is not always what happens. A lot of people who I meet with questions about their new friend have just arrived home from the mall with a crab, a kritter keeper, a couple of shells and some food.


While larger kritter keepers (pictured) might work for making an ISO tank, the easiest and most effective tanks are the glass ones.



What size should you get? That depends on how many crabs you want to keep. I would recommend, regardless of size, that you start with a 20 gallon tank. This will give you plenty of room for water dishes, toys and hideys and plenty of room for them to run around as well. There are many owners who successfully keep their hermit crabs in a 10 gallon tank with a second level. However, I recommend the 20 gallon because I have seen many, many other crabbers outgrow their 10 gallons quickly as they want to add new crabs. So if you have the funds and the space, start with a 20 gallon.

There are four absolutely essential aread that must be worked out as soon as possible.

Water

Temperature

Substrate

Humidity

This is the short list for people that already have their crabs and are trying to stabilize their tank quickly. Once these things are taken care of, you can breath easy for a minute or two, then start on the REAL research!

Water

Hermit crabs need two sources of water, salt and fresh.

Fresh water can be provided in a number of different ways, you can add natural spring water or distilled water directly from the container. Or you can use bottled, well, or tap water and use a dechlorinator. It is important, when chosing a dechlorinator that you pick one that does not provide a slime coating. I use Doc Wellfish Tap Water Conditioner which is widely available.



It is important that, unless you are using spring or distilled that you use a dechlorinator. Years ago it was possible to dechlorinate water by allowing it to sit overnight but now there are other additives to water like Chloramine and heavy metals, that can only be neutralized with help from dechlorinators.


Temperature

Temperature in your tank needs to be kept within a range of 75-84. This can be done a number of ways. If you live in a very warm climate it is possible to keep the temperature stable without any assistance from lights or heaters. However, normal "room temperature" is not this high, it usually hovers around 65-70 and will not keep your crabitat warm enough. You must also keep seasonal changes in mind. My tank stays warm enough in the summer but as winter arrives I have to add both heaters and lights to keep my tank within a safe range. Hermit crabs are not like people, they cannot regulate their own body temperature. It is crucial that you keep your tank within the 75-84 range.

Under the Tank Heaters (UTH) are the most common heaters used to warm a tank. Thin black rectangles that can be adhere'd to the bottom of your tank, they can be found in the reptile section of your local pet store and are sold in various sizes according to the size of your tank. Be sure to buy the heater that is appropriate for your particular tank. You do not want the heater to cover the whole bottom of it, rather, one side so that the crabs can decide where in the temperature zone they want to hang out or bury themselves. Do not add or turn on an UTH unless you know your crabitat is empty of hermit crabs. A molting crab just above where you place the heater may not have the strength to move. The best time to attach an UTH is when setting up a tank or just after a deep clean.

Reptisun and Moonglo lights are also a common way of heating a tank. Very safe and effective, the only downside is that they do affect humidity. Be prepared to supplement humidity (we'll talk about how later) when you use this method.

What NOT to use. Don't use heat rocks or repti-heat lamps. Be very cautious trying to use non-pet products to maintain a stable temperature in your tank such as waterbed heaters, heating pads and space heaters. They are very hard to maintain stability and run additional risks because they are being used in ways never intended by their manufacturers.

Substrate

For a beginning crabber I recommend playsand. It can be purchase at your local home improvement store or at Toys R Us for $3-5 for a 50lb bag. It's very easy to use and quick to set up. I place mine in a bucket and add enough dechlorinated water to make it a sand castle consistency then throw it in the tank. It needs to be wet enough for the crabs to dig in it and hold their caves up, but not sopping.


Another good choice is EcoEarth or Fiber Bedding. I have used both and prefer the sand but there are a lot of good crabbers who use both. Eco Earth and Fiber Bedding are made out of shredded coconut fiber and once reconstituted in water (salt water to avoid mold) it takes on the appearance of moist dirt. I have found that it can be easy to misjudge the ammount of water and EE that gets too wet takes awhile to dry out enough to put in the tank. If you've got time to get things set up, this is less of a problem.

There are other choices that hermit crab caregivers have chosen. Crushed coral, calcisand, moss, beach sand, and others. For a beginner and a first tank I would start with sand or Eco Earth and stabilize the tank before you move on to something more complicated. There are even hermit crab owners who use a mixture!

Stay away from gravel. This is one of the most common myths of hermit crab care out there. Even aquarium gravel which is proported to be safe and smooth is a poor choice. Your crab needs a substrate that is moist and can be dug in. The only time gravel is a good idea is when it is used to prevent crabs from digging under the water dish.

Now how much substrate? Pick your largest crab and measure the height of his shell, multiply by two and that is how many inches of substrate you need in your tank. This is where your kritter keeper starts looking pretty shabby, Five inches of substrate in an 8 inch kritter keeper can get kind of cramped!

Humidity

Hermit Crabs breath through modified gills. The require "wet" air to breath. Aim to keep your tanks humidity between 76 and 84%. Wetting the sand or Eco Earth and putting your tank together for the first time will probably been good enough to start with. A fresh tank always has high humidity (as long as the substrate is moist). However, this will not last and your goal is to keep it stable. You can buy natural sponges to sit in the water dishes or my favorite, create shelves of natural moss that is moistened with salt water. You can get moss at your local pet store or at the craft store. Just make sure you are getting all natural moss, preferably Hiawatha or Sheet Moss. Some others are okay, some are not. Spanish Moss which is very common, is also not safe for hermit crabs. These will help maintain a more constant humidity in the tank. Another way to raise or lower the humidity is to adjust how much of the top of the tank is covered. This may mean using a hood and screen, saranwrap, or a towel. Just make sure whatever method you use, you secure your tank to prevent escapee's. A hermit crab can climb out just by holding onto the silicone.

While you're out at the store pick up a temperature/humidity guage. You can get them at the pet store or in the home and garden section of many larger stores. The pet store ones are the most expensive. I bought one of the inexpensive ones six months ago and it's just now showing signs of breaking down.


Done! Now What?

Once you've gotten these things take care of you've just scratched the surface. There's still so much more to do, but what you've got will keep them well long enough for you to take care of the rest of the list, which is just as vital to the well being of your hermit crabs as the first four.

Hermit Crab Hiding Places

Hermit Crab Climbing Places

Fresh preservative-free foods

Extra shells

A hermit crab buddy, or two, . . . or five

Bathing Hermit Crabs

Do Hermit Crabs make good pets for kids?
Naturally Crabby has moved, find this article and more like it at http://www.naturallycrabby.com



I would like to thank Dionysianexile for writing and granting me permission to post this article on this site. You can visit Dionysianexile at www.crabstreetjournal.com. If I were to write my one post about bathing hermit crabs there is nothing I could add that has not been very eloquently and thoroughly addressed in this article.

Bathing is a highly debated issue in the hermit crab community. It is apparent now that the best solution is to provide “pools” of both salt and fresh water for the animals to do it themselves. It promotes more natural behavior, reduces stress, and seems to be an all around better solution. Unfortunately, many owners do not have the room, or money to have such lavish conditions for their animals, so we as a community, should point them in the proper direction for how to bathe, instead of condemning them for not being able to provide said pools, and thus dividing the community.

I would like to ask for helpful criticism, not all out debate in putting forth these guidelines for bathing. First off, I would like to put forth the abolishment of recommending the use of stress coat. This is a hot issue in itself, but because of the lack of empirical evidence, I do not believe it to be beneficial. Stress coat was designed to dechlorinate water and replace the slime coating of fish. LHC’s do not have a slime coat. When this chemical is put in the water, it is often used in addition to an initial dechlorinater. This causes an abundance of dechlorinater, and lack of chlorine for it to bind to, causing it to stay in the water, and then in the shell water reservoir of the crab. Because this chemical was not created for use with hermit crabs, and no laboratory studies have been conducting showing the chemistry of what effect this is having on the crabs, I say that we, as a community, resolve to not suggest its use to beginners anymore. This of course does not mean that all of those who use stress coat should stop, but that we should no longer recommend its use to beginners. Instead suggesting regular dechlorination of the water.

The second thing I want to recommend is to no longer recommend weekly bathing, but instead, monthly bathing. The reason for this is the stress issue. It has been noted by many crab owners that the activity level of their crabs has increased dramatically after a bath. Considering that a crab’s normal activity level is far below that before the bath, then this high activity level would be considered abnormal behavior. Abnormal behavior in animals generally means that something is wrong, in the case of crabs, because we generally do not know much about LHC illness, this is interpreted as stress, which is bad for the overall health of our pets. So to reduce this stress, I suggest a monthly bath. This again does not mean that we are condemning all active members who bathe on a more regular basis; this is just a recommendation to beginners, who are looking to us for advice.

The argument is often made that bathing will throw off the natural balance of salinity in the shell water, thus affecting the internal salinity level of the LHC. This may be true. It has also become a common practice for those who have mite problems to bathe their crabs in saltwater to rid the crab of mites. For these purposes, I suggest that the bath water is recommended to be1/4 to 1/2 salt-water solution, to lessen the shift in the shell water salinity, and for general sanitary purposes.

Again, I am not suggesting that all active members change their methods, but that we as a community put forth some more well outlined procedures for bathing that are a little more on the conservative side, but also take into account the current evidence for the benefit of the health of the crab. If not for standardization, but for helping the beginner in maintaining a healthy crab.

An Introduction to the Site

Do Hermit Crabs make good pets for kids?
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There are many different approaches to Land Hermit Crab care being promoted from a variety of sources. Some are commercial and some are strictly informative. You will find again and again the phrase, “what you choose to do is up to you.” Many people pick and choose their methods of crab care based on personal preference or even randomly. This website is devoted to a philosophy of crab care where each separate part of crab keeping fit together to compliment one another and provide an environment in which hermit crabs can thrive. I have based my theories on my own personal experience as well as the experiences of many, many other crabbers. I have poured over hundreds of documents and stories of people’s experiences. I have come to the conclusion that ermit crabs are not easy pets to keep. They are very delicate and prone to stress related death even beyond what we can obviously observe.

Based on my observations I have come up with the following philosophy of crabbing.

Hermit Crabs are delicate creatures. They deserve to be housed in a natural environment that simulates what they are used to as much as possible. Their crabitats should be made up of natural materials whenever possible. They should not be manually bathed unless emergency circumstances warrant it. They should be fed a variety of fresh foods that meet their dietary needs. and should be allowed to molt in the tank rather than be further stressed by isolation. Handling hermit crabs should be kept to a minimum.

This site is designed to document my experiences with this method as well as offer up some of the observations I have found through my crabby friends. I am not suggesting here that my way is the only way but I DO believe that based on what I have observed, my way is the best way. I suspect that in the future as crab care evolves even more I may change what I do but it will always be with the intention of creating the most healthy, stressfree, naturally crabby invironment possible.

Philosophy of Pet Care

Do Hermit Crabs make good pets for kids?
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To begin your journey toward being a better Hermit Crab owner begin with your pet care philosophy. I will share mine with you and perhaps you can begin to understand where my ideas stem from. I believe that, while hermit crabs are not like cats and dogs, ALL pets have basic rights that must be respected.


Philosophy of Pet Care

1. There are no cheap, easy, or throwaway pets.
2. I will research any animal I want to adopt before I adopt them.
3.The bare minimum is not enough.
4. If I adopt a pet I am responsible for that animal for the length of its life
5. I will not support commercial pet enterprises that use cruel methods of collection or transportation.
6. I will have all the supplies and conditions correct before I bring home any pet.
7. If I cannot properly care for my pets, I will find them a responsible home where they will receive proper care.
8. Because I have taken an animal into my care and they are entirely dependant on me for their survival, I have a responsibility, to an extent, to put their needs before my own.