Hermit Crabs: A Complete Beginner's Guide

Hermit Crabs are one of the easiest cleanup crew that you could have in your tank. With a group of these crabs in the tank and routines maintenance, you will be having the cleanest saltwater aquarium possible.

There are dozens of different Hermit Crab species popular in the saltwater aquarium. The most common ones you can find are:

  • Blue Legs crabs
  • Red Tips crabs
  • Electric Blues crabs
  • Halloween hermit crabs

So, let's dive straight into the Hermit Crabs, and learn everything you need to know to give them the best possible captive life in your little piece of the ocean.

Prices

The Blue Legs and Red Tips are the smallest of all other Hermit Crabs species. You will not have to spend more than 99-cents to get one of these little creatures.

But for having the more colorful species like the Scarlet hermit Crabs you will have to spend at least $5.

Then comes the more pricey variety of the Hermit crabs like the Electric Blues and Hallowens which can cost you $10 each.

Care Level

These are very small invertibrates, and taking care of these tiny creatures is not a tough task. There is nothing much needed to help them thrive in tanks.

The only warning before getting them is that they acclimate really slow, so make sure you do that right. They take time to cope up with the change in water parameters, especially adjusting to the salinity. Therefore you need to be extra precautions before putting it in the tank.

Temperament

Hermit Crabs are very peaceful creatures, you will never see them bothering any of your corals or other fish.

Reef Compatibility

They are a great reef-compatible clean-up crew choice. They will clean up your algae and help you maintain a clean, algae-free tank without much hassle.

Water Parmeter

  • Temperature: You want to keep your temperature from 72-78 degrees Fahrenheit
  • dKH: 8-12
  • pH: 8.1-8.4
  • Salinity: 1.023-1.025

Make sure that you keep these parameters stable in your tank, especially salinity. If there is continuous fluctuation in your temperature and salinity then these crabs might not be able to survive for a longer period in your tank.

Maximum Size

Their size depends completely upon the size of their shell because their entire body is contained in that little cover of theirs.

They can get bigger eventually if they keep getting shells that are bigger than the previous ones. So, if you feed your crabs properly and keep the water parameters stable and on point and fill your tank with larger shells, you might see them grow a little bigger than their usual size.

Diet

These little wet creatures are scavengers. So, they will be on the lookout for anything and everything to eat, all the time.

They mostly eat the leftover food stuck in the sand-bed. Along with the alga is a big part of their diet, so if your tank is algae-free you will have to put some algae-pellets for them to eat.

If you have to hair algae that is 2-3 inches tall and is waving in your tank, then these crabs will not eat that much. They will only much on short algae-like algae on rocks.

So, pull out such big pieces of algae while cleaning up your tank and the rest will be finished by the little cleanup army of Hermit Crabs in your tank.

You can also keep any kinds of hermit together, you will never have fighting problems with them.

Extra Shells

Make sure that you add extra sell sin your tank before putting these tiny creatures in it. this will allow them to not fight along with preventing them from going after your snails for the heir shells. 

This is mellow down the tit-bit chances of aggression in the tank.

it is advised not to put these crabs with predatory fishes like Triggerfish, Pufferfish, etc; they will go after them and will eat them up. 

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