HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I need to add more greenery to my tat - I currently have silk and plastic - is there an official preference? What do your crabs prefer?

I have both now, they use the silk the most but I think that is because of the placement.

Mine seem to like the silk a little better, but they climb on (and try to eat) both. I find that they will stay on the silk plants for a while, where with the plastic ones, they only use it to get from A to B. Maybe they are easier to hang onto. Not sure. But they use both!

I have both and i think the plastic holds up better then the silk. They seem to love what ever they can climb on that holds the weight of the crabs. I have plastic leaf mats that are leafy on the front but the back is a perfect grid of the plastic squares, some how they love the back side more then the front. I actually bent one to make a cave with the leafy side on the inside and the outside the grids for them to climb on.

I couldn't say which mine prefer but I did have trouble once with some silk plants I got from the dollar store; the red flowers weren't colorfast so to be on the safe side I took them out. No idea what could be in the dye. I didn't have a problem with the green leaves though and I'm sure higher quality silk plants wouldn't have that issue.

Great! I knew you all could help and suebee that is a great idea for a hide out, thanks!

I noticed that there is metal wire inside the 'stems' of some silk plants. I know I read somewhere not to put anything metallic in the crabitat. Would the metal in the stems be harmful? (I didn't put them in just in case, LOL).

I think JediMasterThrash is onto something when he talks about rust not being as frightening as we've been led to believe. I trust his research and since reading this article I haven't been as paranoid about using the plastic plants in my 'tat.

http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... ust#691256

Although my crabs have dug to where the stems are in the tank and tore apart the plastic under the sand....It was rather messy.

Tammy from the Hermit Crab Patch told me that she thought the whole metal thing was a urban myth. She has metal in her tank with no problems and she has a lot of crabs for a lot of years.