Hermit Crabs

Hermit crabs are social animals and need to be housed in groups. A ten-gallon aquarium will work for up to 6 crabs. Add either sand or gravel as a substrate. Never use normal fish gravel! These are hard for your crab to move on and they will make your whole house stink after a few days! Instead there is a special kind of gravel that is made especially for hermit crabs. Crab gravel is specially formulated with dolomite, a chemical that combats odors. You can add different sized shells for decoration and the rare occurrence that your crab might want to change shells. You also need to add coral and choya wood for your crabs to exercise on. Any thing you get from the wild you need to boil in water for 10 minutes. You need to put a shallow water dish for drinking and to add humidity. Never use metal bowls; either plastic lids or a half a clam shell (this adds calcium to the water). You can also add a wet sponge that pet stores carry for hermit crab use. It needs to be fairly humid due to the fact that hermit crabs can be easily dehydrated and you need to place your crab in its water dish daily so that it might soak up enough water.

The temperature in the enclosure needs to be between 67-85 degrees Fahrenheit. This can be accomplished by using a heat light.

Hermit crabs should be fed cereal (without the milk), oatmeal, and any kind of healthy bread or crackers. They also like almost all kinds of vegetables and fruits (especially lettuce). Their favorites though are fish, meat, and peanut butter. Cut all the food up into very small pieces. Never add any flavoring, spices, etc.

Molting Molting is when crabs shed their exoskeleton. Small crabs will molt quite frequently, but older crabs will only molt a few times a year. It is fairly easy to tell if your crab is molting. If the crab's activity drops severely, and they dig into the sand and stay there for a long time, they are probably molting.
Molting is a time for crabs to grow back missing legs (if the legs are completely off, it will take a few molts to grow back) and to grow. Their exoskeleton doesn't allow them to grow, so they must shed it, grow, then make a new exoskeleton.
During the molt, crabs will stay in their shell because they are very vulnerable. Be sure to spray them, because it is very easy for them to dehydrate when they are not walking around. You should also put some food by them or they might starve. After the crab is done molting, the old skeleton will still be there. Do not remove it from the cage. The crab will eat it for calcium (which they need lots of).