There is a Petsmart near me with shallow dry EE, one water sponge, pellet food, and no shells to change into. There are also no hiding spots or humidity/temperature gauges that I can see. The top of the tank is open. There were crab legs strewn across the tank, and the one crab I bought there is the only one I've had die on me.
The Petco is better, but still not good. Shallow EE, but at least the temp. and humidity are good. There's only one water dish, but at least it's not just a sponge. Some odd white things are in the food dish, I have no idea what they are. Both of the crabs I got there are thriving. The worker dunked the crabs in cold water to get them out of their shells...
Please contact cooperate and report your concerns. You will need to know the managers name, (you should of asked to speak to them at the time of your visit) the store you visited, the time and date of your visit. Both Petco and PetSmart do have care sheets that their chain stores are to follow while the creatures are in their stores awaiting to be sold. (and yes one person can make a difference)
Marie (aka ladybug15057)
If you are contacted privately (via pm or e-mail) and enticed to join another forum, please contact a Crab Crew member. This is an unethical practice.
Part of the apparent lack of shells that you've noticed in the tanks is that, at least in the stores I've seen, the prices for a hermie in a painted shell are higher than for a hermie in a non-painted one. The stores want to keep their hermies in the painted ones and, if possible, get natural shelled ones to go into painted ones. So stores will either offer no shells or only painted ones.
Every time I see hermies in bad conditions, I tell everyone I can find in the area (workers) about things to improve. Last time I was in Petsmart at home, I told them to get rid of the gravel and get sand. They did...it's not deep enough, but it's still sand. I told them that their temp/humidity weren't within range, and they were. They were only offering fresh water this time I came through, so I told them to get salt water in there as well as fresh. We'll see if it gets changed...it looks like even just mentioning it to the person in the area and say that it means that fewer deaths can get them to change conditions a little bit at a time.
I'll try doing what's been suggested! Thanks. I just don't know how people can treat such amazing animals like they do. It's worse than how goldfish are taken care of, and that's saying something.
