Back to blogging (the new Strawberry)!

Ah, it has been far too long since I have updated my blog. I must say there has been far too much going on in my life to update properly for a while. Last post was about the possibility of getting a Strawberry, well Gizmo is certainly with me now! He has gone through his first molt already, and has probably been with me for two or three months already. He is gorgeous and huge compared to my last Straw. He is just shy of being as large as a baseball. Even though he has gotten considerably larger since I first got him he is still in his old shell, refusing to even look at a new one.

Junior one of my large PPs, on the other hand shell shops all the time it seems. I have just put him in the ISO tank for the first time and he switched shells immediately. His old one had been cracked and damaged to the point where I could see parts of his abdomen showing through. He however is very happy with his new brown turbo shell.

Since I last updated I lost my jumbo, Thai. I had only had him for about a month, it could have been due to PPS, or just a really hard molt. I’m not sure, sometimes they are so hard to understand. All I know is that I did my best in his last few days to make sure he wasn’t uncomfortable and he had plenty of things I knew he liked to eat. It just is so hard to save them once they decide to go.

I will be updating on a regular basis hopefully, so just remember to check back in ^^

Strawberries

No not the fruit, a hermit crab! I absolutely love these little ones though I have only owned one in my time as a crabber. They are a deep crimson color and tend to have white spots. They are beautiful but I learned they are very  sensitive and I wasn’t ready to keep one. Crim, my original strawberry ended up dying of heat stroke when we had a heat wave. I now keep my temperature set lower in case of the possibility of another heat wave happening when I’m not here to adjust accordingly. It was set at 80 degrees F and is now 78 degrees F.

Apparently my local pet store is getting a shipment of several strawberries in soon. I am at a dilemma. Should I get one? Or should I just cut my losses and stick with Purple Pinchers and Ecuadorians? I think I will probably end up getting one, and trying my luck again, though I know if it doesn’t work out again I will never try exotics again. It’s too heartbreaking to find a dead hermie in my tanks. I do my best for these creatures, and though it is a sharp learning curve I have lost only three. Though I wish I could have at least hit the year mark before I lost anyone. Or never lost anyone at all .____.

The Way To A Hermit Crab’s Heart is Through It’s Stomach

Hermit crabs need a healthy diet, like all animals, but theirs is not as simple as buying commercially made food and then giving it to them. In fact almost all commercially made, or pellet hermit crab foods have Ethoxyquin in them, which is an antioxident that is believed to cause deformities when crabs molt. (here you can read more about it: http://www.crabbytalk.com/?p=95 ) I wouldn’t trust any sort of pelleted food when feeding hermit crabs, and just would make my own food mix or buy them off the internet as there are several websites that make their own hermit crab food. Hermit crabs need a rounded diet, they need fruits, vegetables, proteins, calcium, and chitin (now these are just the necessities).

I always feed a fruit and nut mix, unsalted and no sugar added, along with a variety a fresh fruits and vegetables. Then I have their dried greens. Calcium can be found from cuttlebones or boiled eggshells. Chitin is important for stopping cannibalism as hermit crabs need it to help with their exoskeleton production. It can be found in shrimp, insects, and other things. I feed my hermit crabs fresh steamed shrimp with the exoskeleton attached once a week, along with krill every day, and freeze-dried grasshoppers. DO NOT feed them crickets as there is a virus spreading through crickets that supposedly only affects them but since hermit crab are arthropods too you can’t be too careful. Instead I feed my hermies grasshoppers (here is a thread on it: http://crabstreetjournal.com/xoops/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2386&forum=6&post_id=20567#forumpost20567 ). They seem to enjoy the grasshoppers immensely and drag them about. I also feed a lot of fresh seafood (of course it is steamed in case of shell fish disease, thank you Marie from Crab Street Journal for bringing that to my attention) and some hamburger and chicken. Of course when feeding meats and cooked veggies DO NOT use any seasoning besides olive oil ESPECIALLY NOT table salt as it is deadly to hermit crabs.

I do feed a lot of color enhancing foods, like freeze dried blood worms, papaya, mango, peaches, persimmon, orange bell pepper. Lots of these contain beta carotene or something similar that enhances a certain color in a hermit crab.

They perfect way to build trust is to find something that your hermit crab will absolutely love and give it to them by hand. Of course they might not take it right away. But slowly as you take them out more and more they will get used to you and possibly take it from you. Honey is always a big favorite of a hermit crabs, though its a little sticky its probably the safest bet when trying to gain their trust. Either that or something good and smelly.

Credits

Here is where I get any information that is not mine, this is constantly changing as I find new sources:

http://www.crabstreetjournal.com

http://www.hermitcrabparadise.com/

http://hermitcrabcuisine.com/

http://naturallycrabby.com/home////blog1.php

Loving the Extremes

I know most people love the tiny hermit crabs and so do I. You can tell by one of my newer additions, Brave Heart who can sit on the tip of my pointer finger. But I also love the giant ones. The ones who can take up the entire palm of your hand or larger. I’ve noticed fewer people like these unless they are true crabbers. But what people don’t seem to realize is usually the larger hermit crabs are sweeter and less afraid. They tend to be more personable. I don’t know whether it’s because they are so large they think they don’t have to worry about predators or what.

I was just recently given a hermit crab bordering on the jumbo size by the Petco staff by me. He was free as he was a customer return,  whose son wasn’t taking care of him. They saved him especially for me since they know I love hermits so much. Anyway, after giving him a strong saltwater bath to get rid of any pests he might be carrying I put him in isolation which looks entirely too small for the little giant XD. His name is Thai, and he’s slightly shy for a large one but is coming around. I wonder though how much human interaction he’s had. His shell is entirely too small and I have none that will fit him. I will have to go buy him some soon.

Sea Sponges

Sea sponges are not worth the trouble in my opinion. They soak up all the water and trap bacteria, and add very little humidity in my experience. They need to be sterilized on a regular basis. I find them being used in pet stores all the time in shallow dishes and they suck up all the water so that the poor little hermit crabs have nothing to fill up their shell water with.

Now if you need to keep humidity up I much prefer using moss. Hiawatha moss or sheet moss are two of the few kinds of hermie safe mosses. To be prepared it needs to be soaked in saltwater and then microwaved for 30 seconds. That way you don’t need to put anything in the dishes that would soak up the water. Plus moss can be eaten and provides nutrients as long as you don’t get dangerous moss. Dangerous moss includes any types of dyed moss, beaked moss, or sphagnum peat moss.

Hiawatha moss and sheet moss can be found in craft stores such as Michaels.

 

Learn More About Moss Here: http://www.crabbywiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Fluker%27s+and+Hiawatha+moss&highlight=moss

Purple Pinchers, Purple Pinchers, Purple Pinchers!

I have noticed in the stores around me there is no other kind of hermit crab but purple pinchers. It makes me slightly frustrated as I have an Ecuadorian who is all alone in my tank without any of his kind. I hear other states that Petco sells Ecuadorians, but my Petco hasn’t had a new shipment of hermit crabs in several months. It makes me so annoyed, even my local pet stores don’t order them though they will order they exotics for me. Which I am not interested in.

Ecuadorians are so much more personable than most Purple Pinchers, and usually a lot more active. Purple Pinchers, though I love them, can have very shy personalities compared to the Es. Plus all hermit crabs prefer to have at least one of their own kind within the tank with them. Sadly it seems I may have to revert to ordering my hermit crabs through the internet, though I feel this is very dangerous to health of the hermie and can kill them prematurely.

I am on the fence about what to do.

Post Purchase Stress

PPS is the term used to describe the death of a hermit crab that happens early on, more specifically a few days after you have bought it. PPS is only possible because of the fact that hermit crabs are captured from the wild (since they cannot be bred in captivity without extreme measures being taken) and do not ship well. In order to possibly prevent a premature death it is imperative to have an isolation tank and check the temperature/humidity gauges of the store you are buying from. Therefore you can recreate the environment the hermit crab came from. You can slowly increase the temperature and humidity to what it is to your main tank during the stay in the iso tank. They should be allowed to relax for at least 1 week in the iso preferably two. No handling, and only going in to change the water and food. Only allow one inch to an inch and a half of substrate. No burrowing should happen if it can be helped for the sake of them needing to be observed. After a week they can be introduced to the tank after being introduced to everyone in a neutral area.

 

To Read more on PPS go here, it’s where I learned everything: http://crabstreetjournal.com/xoops/modules/news/article.php?storyid=165&keywords=Post+purchase+stress

The Lifespan Of A Hermit

Hermies (hermit crabs) can live as long as 40 years in captivity. While it’s more likely that they’ll live around 20-30 years, so it is heartbreaking when you lose one so young. I start this blog on a sad day, though it is his death which drove me to start a blog. Rugby, one of my smaller Purple Pinchers died today. He couldn’t have been more than a year old and had only been with me for a few months. He was one of my original four so this is a low blow that fate has dealt. But he lived his last few months in a happy way. With plenty of healthy and good foods, good things to climb on, and great substrate to play in. I have lost only one hermie before this and I at least know what I did wrong back then, though I’m not sure if I’ll ever learn the mysteries of the death of my little Rugby I hope he rests in peace in his backyard grave.

Hermit crabs are usually a creature that lives long in captivity as long as it is provided the right enviroment. Sadly few people know anything useful about these crabs, petstores are pretty much useless when asking advice about them and will usually lead you down the wrong path. Therefore hermit crabs usually end up dying prematurely from the stress of poor living conditions or PPS. Post Purchase Stress(this will be explained in another post)

Perhaps this is what happened to Rugby, perhaps he was kept in the poor living conditions of the store for too long, eating the poisonous pellet food for long enough it affected his system. I don’t know, I hope he understands I did my best and I loved him.

Hello world!

Welcome, welcome, welcome! This is my crabbing blog and I hope you enjoy reading it. It will tell of all my challenges, losses, and hopefully triumphs of the crabbing world. Though I know there will be some tough times ahead as it is a steep learning curve I can only hope to keep my head afloat in this endless sea of research and wonder.