HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I am in the process of building a 55-gallon crabitat to relocate my current hermits into a larger enclosure. I’m taking my time to make it “look nice” but of course be functional and appropriate for their needs.
Part of this process is cycling a 5-gallon freshwater aquarium. It will have some driftwood, some java moss, a large climbing ramp which will basically be plastic mesh but I’m gonna adhere some small fake aquarium plants and stones with aquarium silicone to make it a bit more aesthetically pleasing to me, the human. (The saltwater pool will be a smaller container, cycling and maintaining a saltwater tank does not spark joy in me))
Anyway my question/concern: I was casually talking about my project online and I was challenged to show concise proof that I am not effectively building a drowning death trap for my hermies. This is the second time this week someone’s accused me of trying to drown them. The first time was a retail pet store employee whom I made the mistake of talking to about my project and asked for advice on freshwater plants.

I could not, for the life of me, (to be fair I only searched for a few minutes) find concise information stating a 5 gallon cycled tank with plenty of climbing surfaces/escape routes is appropriate. I’ve found secondary, implied information in the form of crabitat photos with large pools and information on how to maintain a cycled tank in a large enclosure.

I figured making a post like this would create the concise information I need to satisfy the challenge of showing proof a 5-gallon tank with enough climbing escape routes is just fine for them, or it would result in me learning that this is not okay and I need to rethink my crabitat plans.

Anyway, thank you for reading! I look forward to learning.

Just so happens I have a 55 gallon tank and a 5 gallon tank my neighbor gave me that I’m not using yet. I’m currently using 1 gallon Tupperware pools. It might depend on how many crab you have in there because you are going to be taking up some molting space. My 55 gallon is 48 x 13 x 21. I think a 5 gallon is 16 x 8 x 10. I have 8 inches of sub would like to add a little more. If I put the 5 gallon tank on top of the sub there won’t be much room at the top for the crabs to climb in. I don’t want to take up any more available molting space either since I have four crabs in there. As a matter of fact I’m wanting to lift my pools up higher to add more sub underneath them. As for the 5 gallon my neighbor gave me I’ve been thinking about cutting it down so that I can put it in there but then again I’m feeling like it’s just too big for 55. I don’t see my purple pinchers spend much time in the water anyway. I’m not saying it’s not possible but for me I think it’s going to take up too much space especially if I have two pools of that size in a 55. Anyway here’s some pictures just for size reference.



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I use 2.5 gallon aquariums in my 75 gallon. I have had the saltwater one up and running for about a year now. So far I have not had any drownings! As long as you make sure you have easy access in and out of the pools you shouldn't have any issues. I have noticed my strawberries swimming for several hours at a time! Our purples still only toe dip. The nice thing I noticed with my cycled pools is that they require less daily work. I do a 50-75% water change monthly. I could go longer between most changes but change it for piece of mind!

Here is a link to when I was building my pools. It covers quite a bit of things I noticed and tweaked based on my observations.
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