Pet Hermit Crab

Tips On Caring For Your Hermit Crab

Hermit Crab Behavior
Hermit crabs are fascinating pets and each one actually has it’s own unique personality! Some can be friendly, some can pinch you as soon as they get near you and some can be downright crabby. When you first get your pet hermit crab, he might act a bit shy but, don’t worry, after a while he will come out of his shell.

Hermit crabs love to interact with each other and you might see them pushing each other or waving their antennas around at each other. Sometimes they might even fight over a shell with one crab taking a fanchy to a shell another crab has - if you see one of your pets trying to pull the other out of his shell and hear some wild chirping then this might be what is happening. Just let them be, they’ll both end up with a shell in the end and are usually unharmed.

Sometimes crabs can be mean to each other and they will actually even eat each other if the need arises. They seem to be quite attracted to other crabs that are molting and will dig them up and eat them which is why you should have a special isolation tank for your molters. You want to watch your crabs closely for violent behavior and if you have an injured one try to isolate him and hope he will make a recovery.

One interesting hermit crab behavior is called chirping and you’ll know it when you hear it. Strangely enough we don’t expect crabs to make noise but hermit crabs do. No one really knows why or how they do this but it’s kind of neat to hear your crabs “talk”.

Hermit crabs are usually more active at night as they are in the wild. They’ll come out and walk all over the tank climbing up any thing you have including electrical chords and even the sealant on the sides of the glass. This is why you want to make sure you have a tightly secured lid on your tank when you go to bed - you don’t want to wake up and find all your crabs have escaped!

You’ll probably wake up and find the water dish tipped over since hermit crabs like to dig right under it. If you want to avoid this, then try sinking the dish in a bit.

Nearly all hermit crabs do their eating at night so you want to put some food in for them before you go to bed. Some crabs will chow down and some will drag pieces of food away to savor over time. Either way they don’t eat much and what they do eat is eaten very slowly.

Nighttime is also when hermit crabs like to molt so you’ll want to check every morning to see if any of your crabs have started molting and, if so, remove them immediately to an isolation tank specifically for this purpose. It’s not safe to leave them in the tank with the other crabs.