Hermit Crabs

                 First all you need for your little "hermies" is a good "crabitat"! It should have lots of water ,food, shells, play areas and hiding places for them. The hermit crabs stay in your hiding places during daytime. Logs and leaves will do. Buy them climbing bars for playing . You need to buy a "Sea Sponge" at the pet store. They use this to drink. Buy them "Substrate" and sand for them. Layer the sand at the bottom of the tank (a ten gallon tank is a starters tank) then mix the substrate with water, then spread on the top of the sand. Make sure the humidity stays between 70 and 80, and the temperature

is also between 70 and 80.  Only give the "hermies" new food every 12 hours. Just to be safe if you like give them food every 6 hours. I recommend giving them 

fruits and vegetables. Make sure this diet includes carrots. It gives them healthy carotene! 

Also give them "Cuttle Bone" from the pet store. DO NOT give them food aside from fruits, vegetables and "Cuttle bone". They will DIE if they eat processed food. Give them prepared 

powdered food from the pet store. If pellets are the only option crush it into powder.

DO NOT give them normal tap water. It has killer hermit crab metals in it. Buy declorinator and read the instructions to see how many drops to add to the water. Please do not keep picking up your crabs. You can sometimes but it will stress them out of you do. I do not know much about mites or gnats so

do not ask me to help you out. I do know that you have to get rid of hem ASAP. Give them weekly baths if you think it is good for them. Giving them a bath is not necessary because they bath themselves in the cage with the declorinated water you gave them. Fill up a pale of water and submerge your crab upside down for 3 seconds then turn them over and take them out. Introduce new crabs in baths. Giving your crab a bath requires declorinated water (if it is city water their gills will turn red and they WILL DIE) so make sure you have all the right stuff for a bath. If they fight give the evil crab a time out. Keep repeating this till they know each other. remember giving crabs a bath is not necessary because they bath themselves in the tank. They also molt if you see your crab digging a hole in the substrate take him out of the tank and isolate him in another tank. Make sure there is a LOT of wet substrate in the tank(your other Hermie could eat him alive without his shell/skin on)only put him back in the tank when he finishes his old skin and grows back his new skin(also give him a few shells) . Make sue that the food and water that you put in is cuttle bone (a very healthy Hermy food) and salt and fresh declorinated water. If you want to learn more about crabs type in GOOGLE "Lets talk crabs" and click on the second bar you see or you can go to Hermit Crab lovers.com          THANKS!!!