Has anyone any advice/experience with land-living hermit crabs? Been thinking about getting some for ages, been looking into it etc and just want some more advice from crabby lovers!!!

anything from housing to food to handling etc

Thanks

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<3 'Leggy' Luke & Solo 'Simple Cat' <3

Have you seen the site Absolutely Crabulous??
Good crabby forum and also sales site for supplies and hermit crabs. (they are on my list too!! Ive kinda got half the supplies/housing sorted and will def get some one day)

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Ooooh thanks, I will look it up!

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<3 'Leggy' Luke & Solo 'Simple Cat' <3

I LOVE hermit crabs! I was gonna get some but decided on my scorpion eventually as I have a lot of other pets and hermits were just that little bit too much work. Plus they need a more interesting, spacious setup than my scorp and I didn't have room for the size of tank I wanted for crabs. Perhaps once my gerbils go I will use their tank for a few hermits

Food wise they eat almost anything! You can just get jars of 'hermit crab food' which I would give them a small quantity of but I think they still need extra fruit and veg! They also need a bit of meat - they are naturally scavengers so are built to survive on a huge variety of food! You will find a good selection of feeding guides on the internet. Many people spend lots of time cooking eggs and things for them (they need calcium to grow & assist them with moults), this is partly why I didn't get them because i'm a terrible cook and I don't have time to be boiling eggs and cooking things for them and I just wouldn't have been able to give them a varied enough diet.

Handling wise they are great! sometimes when you pick them up they will hide in their shell, but it doesn't take them long to come out they're actually quite speedy so do keep an eye on them and don't let them drop off any high surfaces as a broken shell will probably kill little crabby also be prepared for them to nip! I was lucky (we had some at college) and never got nipped properly but apparently it hurts! And you should relax your muscles because if you tense up, they'll grip harder.

Environment - they do need access to enough water to bath in, so I would put a shallow tub or tupperware box in the tank. They also need to be able to climb in and out of the water easily. We made it so that the sand in the tank sloped down slightly so that it made a little 'ramp' for them to get in and out of the water easily as they are not all that agile. They do however, love to climb! hessian material and netting is really good for them and just anything they can grip their claws into! They also need a lot of empty shells of differing sizes left in the tank. They like to change their shells every now and then and will grow into and out of them! You can buy specialist shells from the internet. I would avoid the 'painted' shells you will probably see on the web as they sometimes contain chemicals that are bad for the crabs.

The best substrate for them (I think) is reptile sand, but there are probably other things and I may be wrong, it's a long while since I looked into them! and it needs to be a few inches thick as they will often burrow in order to moult (which they need to do in order to grow!) while moulting, they really shouldn't be disturbed as this can mess up the moulting process and kill the crab.

Humidity and temperature ranges will be found on the internet, I can't remember it off the top of my head.

Oh and it's also important to remember - crabs are very social! the 'hermit' part of their name is misleading, they love to be around other crabs so I would suggest buying at least 3. Personally I would go with 4 or 5

like catz4m8z said, Absolutely Crabulous is a brilliant crab forum - I was on there but I don't use it now since I didn't get any crabbies and won't be doing for a long while

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Thanks so much for the advice! I will probably gather things over a period of time, then set it up and keep it running crab-less for a few days before i order some crabbies, just so i know how to keep the humidity right and stuff.

Excited...!!

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<3 'Leggy' Luke & Solo 'Simple Cat' <3