HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Has anyone ever tried placing food on the sub to stimulate foraging behavior? I saw someone doing that on YouTube with their crabs and I thought I would give it a try and my crabs have become much more active with this technique. The person in the video I watched said that crabs will become bored with the food bowl sitting in one place all the time. I now believe that placing food such as meat or leaves in food bowls is not natural as crabs do not eat out of food bowls in the wild. They walk along the beach and inland for whatever they can find.

The food will spoil and mold much more quickly, as well as get mixed into the substrate which makes it harder to clean up after them. I don't do it just because it creates more problems. I do usually use smaller shell dishes that I move around the tank, rather than one big food dish.

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Yeah, that makes sense. I'll go back to using the food bowls.

There are some things that I place directly on the substrate. Worm castings, leaf litter, chia seeds, bark, oyster shell, whole eggshell, sometimes crushed eggshell, greensand, and snake skin. Everything else that I feed goes into individual sea shells so they can drag it around the tank

Yeah, I do have some catappa and oak leaves that I placed directly on the sub so the crabs can get their tannin. But I'll put some raw unseasoned beef and cherries on a clam shell.

They eat snakeskin? As in if my snake molts I can stick some of her skin in there?

Wlfwo wrote:They eat snakeskin? As in if my snake molts I can stick some of her skin in there?

Oh yes! They love it!


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If you use any kind of mite treatment product including prevent-a-mite, it could harm the crabs. Also be wary of salmonella! I know a lot of people relax when it comes to crabs, but if you're feeding them reptile byproducts then they and their home can become contaminated as well.

Good point on the mite products! I've personally never used those! No issues here with mites!



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I got them once with an adoption, but was able to contain and treat without much of a fuss. I've known others though who fought for months on end trying to get them under control. Some people use PAM as a preventative, and I've read that some stores will proactively treat substrate as a safety measure as that is how they can be spread. Always better to be cautious!