HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hiya! So to clarify, there is no risk of gill damage to my crabs and I also don’t yet have crabs (at least not since my last ones a few years ago) so no need to worry! This is more for future reference.

Basically, I know letting the crabs out has a lot of risk of gill damage but has been done safely before. Do we know what little differences make some crabs more resilient to the lower temperatures and humidity of homes than other crabs?

I also know that as such, you should monitor your crab carefully if they don’t have a history of being out. What exactly would you monitor for? What are the signs of gill damage? How long does it take the signs to manifest? How long should it take to recover?

I’d just like to be as prepared as possible to give my crabs a happy life in the future I’d like to let them wander every so often for exercise, but I’d like to do it safely. I don’t want to risk anything

The gills are internal so you can’t see them and thus there’s no way to know if they’re ever damaged.

Typically short periods of time in dry conditions aren’t enough to dry them out. The water inside their shells will help by providing a humid microhabitat.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've had read stories of hermit crabs being lost for a month or more, being found outside alive, or crabs being kept w/out a salt water pool and living months or more. Sure they might make it for a period of time, but it's going to have a drastic effect on their lifespan. Your talking a critter that can live for decades when kept properly.

It's a good question, and I don't have an answer. I do have two speculations. One is that the larger the crab, it seems like the longer it should be able to maintain moist conditions inside its shell and avoid any harmful effect from being out in the dry air. Another is that a crab that has molted recently might not be as resilient in handling dry air; I'm just guessing that there's some sort of physical adjustment that might occur in the gills and since everything gets replaced during the molt, it seems possible that such acclimation might have to start over again after they molt.

I've had my crab out every night for a couple of hours, for the past couple of years, but since her recent molt I have reduced it to a half hour or so.

The fear of gill damage has become seriously overblown in recent years. There is a big difference in newly harvested crabs who are already stressed and then kept for weeks or months in constantly poor dry conditions, versus healthy crabs who are let out of their tank for a few hours a day.

Thank you to all! I wasn’t able to come online a few days so I apologize for the late reply but this was very reassuring!