Hermit crabs

**dcompton** · 03-01-2010, 07:53 PM

Have any of you ever had hermit crabs? I been thinking about them. The nice thing is that they are nocturnal and so am I, so that at least would be a match. I doubt I will get any, but I was just wondering if any of you had first hand experience.

**lisaflex** · 03-01-2010, 08:01 PM

we have had them a couple of different times. they dont seem to live long. one got out and was dead on the floor!!!

**Neeley** · 03-01-2010, 08:14 PM

We had four of them at once and I will never get another again. They didn't live long at all and boy did they smell.

On the other hand, my cousin has had them as pets for her boys (ages 10 and 7) for years and has been happy with them. Hers never smell bad and the boys have enjoyed them.

**Palooka** · 03-01-2010, 08:46 PM

I love hermit crabs and they make wonderful pets.

You have to make sure you have new/bigger shells for them in their cage all the time. They grow fast and will switch to a new shell when you are not looking.

They are also very lonely little creatures and will die without another companion. The more the better.

They are easy to take care of though. They drink water from a sponge and they love water.

Mine used to hang out on my shirt.

They can also get to know you.

I never had a problem with the smell?? I remember we had like blue sand or something for them.

**pita1213** · 03-13-2010, 08:35 PM

dd has had one for about 3 years. it's easy to take care of, mostly just making sure there is fresh food pellets and water and scooping his poo. we have him in a fish tank. i think it's 18 inches by 6 inches. he does like to crawl all over it and we have a couple of things in it for him to climb up. the stinker likes one particular shape of shell that i had a dickens of a time trying to find larger shells that weren't too large. the only issue we have had is mites. they will invade if dd doesn't keep his tank clean from his poo. when that happens, we have to totally replace the sand in his tank.
we buy the calci-sand from the pet store. we had read about them being social animals and doing better if there are at least 2 of them, but ours seems to like to be alone. we had bought a second one but the second one died after a couple of months. i don't know if it was stress or if there was a dominance issue and i have a little hermit crab assassin. while the other one was alive, he avoided the second one as much as possible and hid in the igloo we have for him. once the second one was gone, he was back to crawling everywhere so we never got another one after that.

**dcompton** · 03-13-2010, 09:01 PM

Thanks for all the info. I've decided against it for now. I'm focuing on plants for a hobby at present, working on the indoor jungle I always longed for. I'm going to keep them on my maybe-later list, though.