Is it even possible to breed captive hermit crabs?

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jfs
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Is it even possible to breed captive hermit crabs?

Post by jfs » Fri Nov 17, 2017 4:31 pm

Ive been thinking about this. It seems like no one sells captive breed hermit crabs... How big of a terrarium do you need? I would assume you need 100+ gallons. You also need a salt water fish tank.. So you would need a 200 gallon one side being echo earth and the other be playsand with salt water to create a natural life cycle? Give me you thoughts on this subject, I wonder if someone's going to breed them for petstores someday.

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aussieJJDude
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Re: Is it even possible to breed captive hermit crabs?

Post by aussieJJDude » Fri Nov 17, 2017 5:16 pm

Its easy enough to breed them, pretty much anyone can do that. The hard thing is to rasie the zoea. If you look in the health and breeding section, you'll find many people have that bred - and fewer who have raised - hermit crabs. Unfortunately they are not easy to 'mass produce' so i font think you will see people selling captive raised crabs in a long time.

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Renroc
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Re: Is it even possible to breed captive hermit crabs?

Post by Renroc » Sat Nov 18, 2017 6:16 am

jfs wrote:Ive been thinking about this. It seems like no one sells captive breed hermit crabs... How big of a terrarium do you need? I would assume you need 100+ gallons. You also need a salt water fish tank.. So you would need a 200 gallon one side being echo earth and the other be playsand with salt water to create a natural life cycle? Give me you thoughts on this subject, I wonder if someone's going to breed them for petstores someday.

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Certainly is possible and not all that difficult. Just time consuming and very stressful. Out of thousands of zoea I got 24 or so to land. 13 of those survived their first few molts on land and I have at least 6 ( that’s the most I’ve seen at any one time) that are now 16 days short of their first birthdays.


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Crazy crab lady with 1 male raised in captivity who is now 7 yrs old (Dec 23) and a 2 females I've added from rehoming or adoptions to add to my breeding colony.

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AwesomeHermit
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Re: Is it even possible to breed captive hermit crabs?

Post by AwesomeHermit » Mon Nov 20, 2017 2:53 pm

Renroc, I can't believe how successful you have been with these babies! Soon not be babies any more! I was reading the entire process as you were posting messages about their growth, just never signed up back then.
One or hopefully two Clypeatus
Goodbye my little E. See you soon.
Bye Fred. You lasted almost 4 years with me. Hope you're with my E now! See you soon Reeba as well. I can't believe I lost you only after a month.
Crabbing for 4 years!

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