Designing Your Hermit Crab's Crabitat

Building a proper habitat is one of the most important steps to having a healthy, happy hermit crab. Some find it difficult to justify spending money on a hermit crab who often comes free from a mall kiosk with the purchase of a “starter kit” consisting of a small plastic carrying container, gravel, food and sponge. (Earthbound Trading Company, anyone?)

However, these starter kits are sadly lacking in what hermit crabs need for even basic survival--most hermit crabs who live in these conditions will die within their first few molts.
My family bought two hermit crabs on impulse during a trip to Galveston, TX. One died within weeks, and my dad went out and bought two more to keep the first company. Those two died, and for some reason, the first hermit crab hung on for nine years in the worst of conditions--tiny 5X10 inch plastic cage, colored gravel, a sponge, the same commercial food for nine years, and tap water in a small shell. The plastic cage sat on the floor of the family bathroom, and poor hermit crab probably only survived due to my mother's diligent weekly cleanings, and the humidity that came from us taking showers in the bathroom.

It wasn't until I was in my senior year of college that I took the hermit crab and slowly figured out how to properly take care of it. Hopefully, as hardy as this particular hermit crab is, it will live out its next 20 years in hermit crab luxury (as hermit crabs can live to be 30 years old or more).


So, the following is a how-to for building the perfect crabitat--the equivalent of a crab mansion!

1. Decide what type of container you want to house your crab/crabs in.

Most people like to be able to look in on their hermit crabs, so a glass or plastic aquarium is best for this purpose. The cheapest container, in my experience, is a 10 gallon glass aquarium that can be purchased at Wal-mart for about $10. (Cheaper than Petsmart or Petco!)

You can also use a tupperware storage container if you don't care about looking in on your hermit crab. But, be warned that it will be more difficult to keep tabs on the temperature and humidity gauges (which we will talk about shortly), and the general well-being of your crab, if your cage isn't clear. Also, you won't be able to enjoy your crab's environment, which can be very calming, if set up (landscaped, if you will) artfully.

2. You will also need some sort of cover for this container in order to keep the humidity at a level high enough for your crab--I use a screen cover made for aquariums, with plastic taped on the underside. Other choices are saran wrap, or glass covers made from aquariums.

3. Decide what sort of substrate you want to use. (This is the stuff that goes on the bottom of the cage)

Most places that sell hermit crabs with starter kits sell bags of colored aquarium gravel as the substrate. While this may be okay for part of the cage, crabs will also need an area where they can dig and tunnel into, in order to molt properly. This substrate can be prepared playsand or forest bedding.

4. Other necessities:

Temperature and Humidity Gauges

The target temperature for your crabitat should be between 72 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit while the target humidity should be around 72. Too dry, and the crab will dehydrate. Too wet, and the crab will suffocate.

Go here for suggestions on how to maintain good humidity.

Good brand for these gauges:

Two Water Containers

One for dechlorinated water, one for salty dechlorinated water. Tupperware works well for these purposes--just make sure to fill the containers with enough gravel so your hermit crab will be able to get out again if it decides to take a bath in them, which they sometimes like to do. Otherwise, they could drown.

Food Container and Food

Any container works, really, that they can get into and out of.

For hermit crab food, visit the Hermit Crab Addiction store (link on left navigation bar). This is where I buy my hermit crab food, and SuperCrab loves it. He used to not eat very much at all, when I only fed him the hermit crab food you can buy from Petsmart. Now, he eats like a little piglet. Strawberries are his favorite.

Extra Shells

(that are slightly larger than the current one your hermit crab is using)

It is best to buy the more natural looking shells, as the paint on the painted shells can be toxic.

Some Nice Extras for Your Crabitat

1. Cholla wood.  Crabs love to climb, and cholla wood gives them somewhere to do it.  It's extra fun for them if you can find a piece that has a large enough hollow middle that they can climb into it like a tunnel.  The crabs also love to eat little pieces off the wood.  

(insert pic)

2. Sideways cup, or other sort of hideaway.

3. As mentioned in the humidity post, a moss pit or bubble pool.  

Ways to Keep the Humidity Up in Your Crabitat

The initial problem most people have with their crabitats is keeping the humidity high enough. There are a couple things you can do to fix this, and the pros and cons of each:

1. Having two fairly large water bowls (one clear water, one salt water) will do a lot to fix this problem, especially if you have a good, moisture retaining cover on the top of your aquarium (or other crabitat container).

In my crabitat, I use a 4-cup plastic tupperware container for the salt water, filled almost all the way with gravel so SuperCrab can climb out if he decides to take a soak. I use a smaller container for the clear water, and the humidity stays pretty high.

2. If the humidity is still not high enough, you can mist the sides of your aquarium with water. This will bring the humidity up, but it won't stay up for very long, even with a cover on your aquarium. 24 hours at most. Also, the spike and then fall of humidity isn't the best for the hermit crab, though it's better than low humidity all the time.

This is the cheapest option.

3. You can make one of your water bowls into a bubbling pool. The benefits of this possibility is that it's still fairly cheap...about $10. It's also pretty cool to watch, and I really love the idea of SuperCrab having a mini Jacuzzi. Makes me quite envious of him, actually.

To do this, you must purchase an airstone, aquarium tubing, and an air pump.

(insert pics here)

For me, the airstone was 79 cents, the tubing $1.99, and the air pump, about $7. So the whole thing cost about $10, all available at Petsmart.

The cons of this possibility is that it can be fairly loud. If you bury the airstone at the very bottom of your water bowl, under all the gravel, it diminishes the sound by a lot. But there's still an audible hum.

4. Finally, you can also make your hermit crab a moss area. I haven't tried this, as I was able to keep the humidity up with the previous methods, but it looks awesome in other people's crabitats. This can be done by buying a corner shower caddy, like so:

(insert pic)

Stick this shelf onto a corner of your aquarium (this will only work if your aquarium is glass, I think, unless you can come up with something creative) and put some wet moss in it, and the humidity should go up by a couple points.

The moss pit can also be made into a nice area for your crabs if you lean a piece of cholla wood up to it.

Be aware that just any moss will not do for your hermit crabs--spanish moss is not okay! Most people use Hiawatha moss, which can be purchased online at a number of hermit crab enthusiast sites.

Reminder: the target humidity for your hermit crab's home is 72.

A Bit About Hermit Crab Diet

Types of Forest Bedding to Use

Knowing what kind of forest bedding to use can be confusing.  I know, because I went all over town looking for the right kind, thought I found the right type at a pet store way across town, and then realized when I got home it was, in fact, not the right type, and had to drive all the way back to return it.  There you have the reason that, to this day, SuperCrab makes do with sand and gravel only.  

So.  What you're looking for is a 

How to Dechlorinate Water

How to Make Salt Water

Molting

Molting is the process that occurs when hermit crabs shed their exoskeleton and then slowly eat the shed exoskeleton for nutrients.

While hermit crabs can molt on the surface of the substrate (as they are often forced to due to the use of aquarium gravel as the only substrate), the crab is more likely to lose a leg or pincher, or even die, in the process.

SuperCrab molted on the surface for 9 years, as mentioned previously, losing a pincher a couple of times, but always regaining it during its next molt. However, three of his compatriots perished while attempting to do the same.

Once I fixed his crabitat up so that he would have somewhere to bury himself and molt, he picked it up immediately and molted underground for the first time in his 9 years, acting purely on instinct. Proof that he preferred being buried for molting? His substrate was half aquarium gravel, half sand at the time, and he chose to tunnel in the sand. In fact, he stayed underground for a good month and a half that first molt, and returned healthier than he had ever been.

How to Prepare Playsand into Substrate

Playsand (meant for children's sandboxes) can be purchased at Home Depot, Lowe's, and pretty much any hardware store. The two things you should be worried about when using playsand as a substrate is its cleanliness, and its metal content. So...

1. Try to grab a bag that is in the middle of the pile of sand bags, and make sure the bag does not contain any holes, and the outside of the bag isn't wet.


2. Once you get the playsand home, bake the sand in your oven at 350 degrees, for 40 minutes. This kills any parasites, etc. that may be hiding in the sand.


3. Finally, the metal content. Now, this is a pretty picky subject, but hermit crabs are very sensitive to metals and cannot withstand metals in its habitat. So, when I bought my bag of playsand, I bought a mesh drain strainer for about $1, and took a high-powered magnet I happened to have sitting around.


(pic of mesh strainer and zinger)


I put the high powered magnet into the mesh strainer and had someone take cupfuls of the playsand and pour it carefully over the magnet in the strainer slowly, making sure the sand had to touch the magnet before it could get into the aquarium.

This takes a lot of patience, but you only have to do it once, since you can reuse the playsand substrate over and over again, by just baking the sand in the oven to disinfect it during crabitat cleanings.


4. Then, put the substrate in your aquarium, and wet it with salt water until it's consistency is similar to that necessary to make sand castles. To test the consistency, stick your finger into the wet sand. If the hole made by your finger remains after you remove your finger, with no collapsing, this is a good consistency.


Congrats! You have finished making your playsand substrate.