We reached out to customer Willow for more info about her fantastic hermit crab tank build. She used a sturdy manzanita branch as a central feature, but there's a lot more going on in this tank!
Just to provide a little background - have you kept hermit crabs in the past, or is this your first hermit crab tank?
I work full-time at a children's museum that houses many exotic species as part of its permanent exhibits. I have many responsibilities there, but my main ones are to take care of our animals and to plan and execute educational programs mostly aimed at kids. In my first 6 months in my position, we were taking staff pictures with animals for us to put on display and someone asked me which of our animals was my favorite. It was the first time I really had to think about it, as I care a great deal about all of them. I remembered first meeting our hermit crabs and being enamored with one using my hands as a treadmill. They were such small and strange and magical creatures to me, so I knew what my answer was then. After we took staff pictures I realized that I wanted to learn more about hermit crabs, especially if I was going to say they were my favorite! I am neurodivergent, so it was very easy for me to lean heavily into researching them. I soon realized how many of their needs for survival and health were not being met. This gave me a sense of urgency to build them the proper enclosure, and inspired me to want to rescue some of my own hermit crabs to do the same for at home!
I found a girl on Facebook marketplace selling 3 hermit crabs (in a really dire circumstance, set up in a barren 10 gallon tank outdoors and on top of another tank that literally had a gasoline container inside it). I drove the 2 hours to her house and got them for $20. I then pretty much built a crabitat for my crabs at my house and a crabitat for the crabs at my work concurrently, which have both been running successfully for almost a year now.
That sounds awful! Did you have to do any rehab?
Yes, they definitely needed rehab time.
When I got them home, they spent time in a quarantine tank where they had access to clean freshwater and saltwater and were given fresh food daily. I tried to follow acclimation guidelines set in what's known as the PPDS (Post-Purchase Death Syndrome) acclimation method for hermit crabs. The hermit crabbing community uses the term 'PPDS' to refer to the apparently common phenomenon of recently-purchased pet hermit crabs dying quickly after arriving to their new home. This is believed to result from all the stress and traumatic conditions they have been put through during their capture in the wild, inhumane transportation conditions after, and unlivable conditions in pet stores after that. The PPDS method was created to try to help them acclimate better to prevent these deaths.
I think anyone rescuing crabs for the first time should refer to all guides by Crab Central Station and Crab Street Journal. Be prepared for your crabs to dig down and/or molt almost IMMEDIATELY after arriving to their new home. It's what they need to do to de-stress. You may not see them for weeks and worry about them, but it's essential for you not to dig or disturb them when they are molting because it can kill them. The PPDS method actually recommends not providing enough sand in the quarantine tank for them to molt because the idea is to try to get as much nutrition and hydration into them as possible before they can do that, so that they can hopefully have enough strength to survive that first molt in the new home. Well, that didn't stop any of my 3 crabs from molting in the quarantine tank! Really glad they made it through that molt. That's when I named them.
What’s the size of the tank, and how many crabs do you have at the moment?
My 3 crabbies live in a 40-gallon breeder tank that has an additional 40-gallon glass front-opening enclosure on top. This provides them with enough room for burrowing and healthy/safe molting on the bottom tank, as well as room to forage and climb in the top tank. Their names are Peep, Jones, and Cassius Claw!
What are some of the features in your tank that provide enrichment? Do the hermit crabs have any favorite hangout spots?
Some enrichment items I have for them are a walking saucer, hamster wheel, climbing hide, and coconut huts. They are obsessed with the saucer and will walk on it for hours through the entire night. They're nocturnal, so in the morning I get to find out how they partied the night before by looking at recorded highlights from a night-vision security camera I have inside their enclosure! They also quite enjoy cuddling up inside the coconut huts. But sometimes they will create tunnels in the substrate and decide not to see sunlight for weeks just because! A deep substrate is not only essential for them to safely molt in, but it provides them enrichment and cover. They also benefit from having lots of surfaces to climb on, since they climb trees in their native habitats to forage for soft bark. Speaking of foraging, lots of treats are scattered around the tank for them to find. One of those is unsalted popcorn!
Very high tech! Since they're nocturnal would you consider the night-vision camera a "nice to have" or more of a necessity?
Good question! For me personally, I would actually consider the night-vision camera to be a necessity. My crabs really do operate on a regular schedule so, most days the camera is the only way that I get to see any of their activity. If I do see them during the day, I usually can't get too close to the tank without scaring them, so I enjoy them from a distance. It's definitely different from watching them on the cam because on the cam, I get to see how they interact with objects in their home, what shells they showed interest in, what things became obstacles to them in the tank that I need to fix, what foods did they really like. When they first moved into their main tank, they were still pretty stressed out and I actually was in bed watching them on the camera and noticed one starting a fight with another. I was able to break it up and separate them! Many other times, I'm able to laugh at the stuff my crabs will do at night. It turns out they're very clumsy. I could make an entire montage video from night vision clips of my crabs flinging themselves off of their walking saucer, climbing to a tall height and then just letting go, or tripping and rolling down the steps of their climbing hide.
There are some habitat starter kits out there - are those enough for a beginner tank, or is there anything you think that even new crab owners should think about adding to their store-bought kits?
To my knowledge, many exotic pet starter kits do not sufficiently provide the customer with what their animal needs. In the case of hermit crabs, starter kits for them often include items branded for them, such as "hermit crab calcium sand" and "hermit crab food pellets". Calcium sand can harden like concrete and actually trap and kill them when they burrow under the substrate. Pellet foods include ingredients that are literally toxic to hermit crabs! Heat lamps included in the kits can overheat and harm their exoskeletons, and included heat mats are usually not large enough to cover the entire back of the tank, which leads to the air being inadequately heated. The lids of hermit crab starter kits often are wire mesh topped, which don't trap enough humidity for the crabs to breathe through their modified gills. And this is me being generous and thinking of the kits you'd see in pet stores. Many hermit crabs are sold as pets in tiny little metal and wire cages at beach shops as souvenirs. Those guys often don't live long, which is sad considering their lifespan can be up to 40 years in the correct conditions.
Did you custom-make any of the components? Does everything have to come directly from a pet store, or can you get creative with what you add to the tank?
I didn't personally custom make anything that's in my tank, but I really love supporting small businesses by purchasing items for my tank that others custom made! My fresh and saltwater pools are handmade food-safe ceramic bowls. I also use food-safe ceramic trinket dishes for their foods. The coconut huts I've suspended in the manzanita branch were hollowed out for me by a girl I found on Etsy. Sure, you can get lots of items from pet stores, but you can also get creative! Lots of people in the hermit crab keeping community make do with cheap materials and DIY. You can check out the Crabitat Dream Builders Facebook group to see some really awesome setups.
What things should someone consider when choosing decor for a hermit crab enclosure?
Materials to avoid in a hermit crab tank would be almost anything that wouldn't be safe in an aquarium, i.e. Metallic objects that can rust, paints, silicones with mold inhibitors, etc.
Live plants vs artificial plants in a crab-itat - what are some of the pros and cons?
Live plants would be so nice to have in my crab tank because they would be beneficial to the nitrogen cycle in there. But sadly, as far as I know, it's too risky to keep live plants in a hermit crab enclosure. For one thing, hermit crabs will eat almost anything, and some terrarium plants are not safe for them to eat. Another issue is that a plant's root system could entrap a hermit crab that has burrowed into the substrate to molt. So I add plastic plants to my tank for them to hide behind and climb on.
What sort of foods do you give them?
My crabs eat all sorts of foods! They have a wide variety of nutritional needs, as they are natural scavengers. They require a lot of protein like meat, fish, and eggs, with other things mixed in like fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, oils. They get something new from those categories every day. Other than that, I always keep cuttlebone and crushed oyster shell in there for calcium, crushed crab and lobster shell to support healthy exoskeletons, and Earthworm castings, which they are obsessed with because of all the nutrients.
Any advice for people thinking about getting hermit crabs?
My advice to anyone who is thinking about keeping pet hermit crabs is that they should become as informed and prepared as possible prior to obtaining them, because they actually have a lot of specific requirements that can add up to a big startup cost and lots of effort. The best resources I can recommend are Land Hermit Crab Owners Society, Crab Street Journal, and a YouTube channel called Crab Central Station.
Last question, if someone is keeping crabs and has a question or is maybe looking for a like-minded crab community - are there any receptive online outlets/forums or maybe in-person events that you could recommend as a resource for proper care/husbandry?
Yea there's lots of places to find community with hermit crab keeping! On Reddit, there's the subreddits r/hermitcrabs and r/pinchersandpods. On Facebook, there's a group that really inspires me called Crabitat Dream Builders where people post amazing enclosure builds and share tips on tank DIY. As for in-person events, there's actually a whole convention for hermit crab keepers! It's called Crab Con. I haven't attended yet, but they make some of it available to stream online every year.
Thank you so much Willow for sharing your beautiful tank with us!