A lot of people are a little leary of adding a Jumbo Hermit Crab to their tank. For some, it's just because their current crabitat is too small, for others, it's the fear of those great big pinchers. Truly a jumbo hermit crab has the capability of doing some serious damage, however, in the time I've spent crabbing I've never met a jumbo hermit crab that was aggressive to either other crabs or people.

There are somethings you should keep in mind before getting a jumbo though. As with any pet, different sizes of animal have different requirements.

For a jumbo hermit crab the first thing is size of environment. A jumbo should really have around 20 gallons all to themselves. They really need to have space to move around, climb, and tunnel. Hermit crabs are built to travel across beaches and therefore, exercise becomes very important.

Hiding areas. The majority of commmercial hiding items are not large enough to house a jumbo crabs. It is your responsibility to find something that the crab will feel comfortable in. This means either buying something larger or making it. a custom built cocohut is a great place to start.

But probably the most expensive need with Jumbos is shells. For a crab that is going to need turbos with a 1 1/2 to 2 inch opening, shells can quickly become a major investment. They also take up a lot of room in your tank. Though jumbos change shells and molt less often, it is still important to have a good variety of jumbo shells.

All of this being said, Jumbo Hermit Crabs are really very special and a personal favorite of mine. They are rarely shy and often seem interested in what you are doing, especially if it involves the food dish. If you choose to get a jumbo take the time to make sure you've got everything ready to add this new big guy to your tank.

We have all seen hermit crabs in painted shells at the pet store or in a kiosk at the mall. Usually they are painted to look like cartoon characters, holiday themes, simple designs, or sports themes. In today's article I want to you a little bit about where painted shells come from, the methods used to get crabs into painted shells, what happens when you get your crab home, and what all of this means for me, for you, and for the crabs.

Painted shells are painted in large numbers for very little money. This poses two kids of problems. First, workers aren't making a living wage, second, the distributors are collecting thousands (yes, thousands) of viable shells from beaches and rendering them useless to crabbers. In a time when wild land and marine hermit crabs are suffering a severe shell shortage, this might be the most damaging practice of the entire painted shell cycle.

Hermit crabs are harvested from the wild. This we know. In the wild they are wearing natural shells. By the time they get to your local pet store they are in painted shells. The question has been posed many times. How do they get from their original shell into the painted one. We know that they are not painting them in the shell because they would ruin the paint crawling all over one another.

We are therefore forced to concede that they are being removed from one shell and placed in another. I don't know if you've ever tried to get a hermit crab to come out of its shell but take my word for it, they aren't going to go willingly. In fact, most hermit crabs will allow themselves to be torn in half before letting go of their shell. That leaves us with only a few options, all of them relying on the crab leaving it's shell of it's own free will.

Many methods have been suggested over the years with not a lot of hard evidence for any of them. Most of them are rumors but I've heard the following three rumors often enough to believe that there are some truth to them. One is to use electricity or heat to get the crab to leave it's shell. One is to force the shell under water until the crab leaves to avoid drowning. The final one is to place the hermit crabs in a small cage that prevents them from getting to food and water that is outside the "bars" of the cage. Once they leave their shell to get to water, they are moved to the painted shell box. A crab will re-shell quickly when naked. If the only choices are painted shells, that's where he will go.

Personally I believe that the first one is the most likely although some part of me secretly hopes that they are drugging the crabs and removing them while they are limp and sleepy. Much less traumatic all around. However, I've never hear that possibility from any source, credible or no.

The shells are painted on the outside and often on the inside as well. They are not always dry when the crabs move into them, you can read about Piccalo's horrible ordeal when her crab came home stuck inside it's shell because of the paint.

Manufactures and distributors will make lots of claims about the benefits of painted shells. Some will say that scientist have proven that crabs prefer painted shells. Not true. There has never been a scientific study that showed crabs prefer brightly colored shells. In fact, many crabbers have observed that a crab will choose a shell that helps to camouflage them the most. All the crabs I have ever had ditched their painted shell within 1 day of arriving in my terrarium and no one ever changes into them.

There are also painted shell vendors that claim that they sell a "no peel" shell. Well Milo, pictured at the beginning of the article is in one of their "no peel" shell. Seashells are not a surface conducive to a permanent paint job. Add to that a crab that is crawling around in sand and high humidity and very few types of paints would withstand that treatment.
What happens to all this garbage paint coming off of these shells? The same thing that happens to anything in the crabitat, it gets eaten. Hermit crabs are constantly picking up and nibbling on things in their environment and the paint chips are no different. I have even seen crabs eating the paint right off of another crabs shell. And if you don't believe that a crab can pick the paint off of a shell, keep in mind that crabs can and will chip away at the opening of the shell they are in until it is the right shape and size.


It has also become trendy to glue plastic baseball and football helmets over shells during sports season. These are often so cumbersome that the hermit crabs can barely maneuver and cannot hide at all because they no longer fit into caves and cocohuts. Similar to this trend is the disasterous Hermit Crab "Bling" kits that encourage kids to glue sparkles, pompoms, and rhinestones to their hermit crabs shell. All will fall off within a few weeks and all of which are harmful to your crab.


In a time when most petstores have undertaken a voluntary ban on selling animals like the painted glassfish it's long past due to stop a practice that is harmful to hermit crabs, depleting much needed natural resources, and encouraging children and their parents to walk into disasterous "impulse buy" situations that lead to poorly treated and often neglected hermit crabs once the family loses interest. As easy going as I am about differing opinions regarding hermit crab care, this is something that should unite us. Hermit crabs are not a toy, they are not a throwaway pet, and they deserve better. We, as caretakers of the planet, are the ones who must step up and get the job done.

I have never had aggression problems in my crabitat. I keep it big and full of things to explore and places to hide. I also keep it far under capacity, with around 25 crabs in the 90 gallon terrarium. One day, I found one of my cutest, sweetest, and shyest crabs, a viola whom I adopted from a friend, locked onto another crab's shell. I pried her off and moved her into the corner and him up to the moss pit.

Within a few seconds she was charging across the tank, snapping her big pincher and chirping. This is even more significant when you find out that I've never been able to coax this crab out of her shell in my presence up until this moment. Over the next few days I seperated them 4 or 5 more times. It made no sense until it dawned on me, she wanted the apple murex that Fancy (the other crab) was in.

Now, I have plenty of other shells, apple murex's among them but she had fixated on this one. It was at this time, after much coaxing and sweet talking, that I got fancy to emerge from his shell. To my horror, I saw that she had clipped the tips off of each of his legs and taken a nip out of his BP. That was it! I packed him off to stay with a friend in her crabitat and recover.

I didn't punish her (how would you punish a crab?) because she was exhibiting a natural behavior. She had a very strong need for a different shell coupled with the irritability that comes with an impending molt. None of my offerings were to her liking. Instead I got on the computer and ordered some shells. I got the one inch apple murex from The Crabbage Patch first and it went right into the tank.

Yesterday morning I woke up to find this running around my tank. It took me awhile to figure out what had happened.

Yep, that's an extremely freshly molted PP, still pale, moved into an apple murex. But! NOT the apple murex from the Crabbage Patch. This was much too small and a little darker.

I looked around the tank and didn't fine the apple murex from the crabbage patch. I deduced, hopefully, that Miss Viola Pinchy Pants had moved into it.



and she had! Hopefully this will end some of the aggression issues. Honestly, the little PP that moved into her old shell is in a bit of a spot simply because it is in an apple murex and that is what she likes. However, I'm hoping that happiness with her new shell will keep her from attacking anyone else for awhile. Oh, and she's gone back to her usual hidey-crab behavior.

Update: To date (late september) the Viola has not exhibited that sort of aggression again.