HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I just want to mention that all shells aren't crab worthy...I mean crabs won't even consider a shell that isn't smooth on the inside and without holes. If you have plenty of shells in your tank but still no one has considered switching...Check your shells closely. Make sure the insides are smooth and to check for holes you can fill them with water and see if it leaks out...

I'm finding that bunches of shells that I've inherited are not any good. We got poor little Lonely and he was in a painted shell three sizes too big and had four shells in his tank..All too big but they also had bumps and blisters inside. One even had a hole in it.

Yes, that is a very good point.

thanks for the tip i'll have a look over my shells...i've only had 1 shell change out of 4 crabs

One of my crabs took like a year to change shells. He had this really ugly blue painted shell. Every other crab I had was glad to get in a natural shell, but not him. Then I noticed he would change into another shell, but then change back into his old ugly blue shell until one day I grabbed it real fast. Ha!

Years ago I bought a bunch of shells before I knew that painted ones were bad. Two were red/white/blue striped with stars...So I bought them and put them in the tank. Cesar changed into the rwb one and kept it for years. He wasn't forced to move (how could you force them unless you stressed them badly? I'm not a bad hermie mom...)in so I left him there and kept offering many his size, bigger, smaller...All checked for holes and smooth insides.

He finally changed out but I always kept that shell. There must have been something about it. A year ago it was rotated into the small guys' tank and Quagmire took it over. He's still in it and it's scuffed and beaten up but Quagy seems to really like it. All his buds have switched but he stays in that one. There's just something about that one.

It must be the inside of the shell that they like so much. Probably really smooth or something like that....

Yeah, the inside of painted shells sometimes attracts the crabs because of how smooth it is on the inside. I finally got my persistent crab out of his awful painted shell. It was sealed on the outside but was chipping on the inside, I realized that as he took a nibble and I grabbed it before anything else happened. It really makes you wonder if they like eating that stuff.

Nope. They're like babies and they'll put anything in their mouths...Doesn't matter that it's nasty tasting or anything...They just put it in their mouth because they can.

Dawn wrote:Check your shells closely. Make sure the insides are smooth and to check for holes you can fill them with water and see if it leaks out...

I really recommend doing this.

When I first got my guys one of the shells looked ok and he was in it for a time but once he moved out of it I went to go wash it out and it started to leak since there was a slit that you couldn't see but it let the water out.

I have only kept it since it was his shell that I got him in and just use it to compare to how much he has grown.

I check my shells often for holes and so forth. I just got some new shells from Naples yesterday for my larger PPs and my new Straws and they looked decent. I am going to boil them tonight I think because they are pretty dirty on the inside.

Personally, I think it has something to do with the color blue. I too have a crab in a hideous blue shell. She changed out and 2 days later changed back. I've checked & double checked all my shells and even offered a bigger variety and she still refuses to budge from the ugly blue one!