Ok I feel really bad like I've been neglecting my crabs or something. The lady I bought them from says I only needed to give them bottled water for drinking and keeping them hydrated etc. but everywhere else says salt water as well! I don't know which to believe.. she said something about "United States" species need salt water but the ones here don't (I'm in Canada)
I don't want to hurt them by giving them salt water and the don't need it, or by not giving it to them!
Help quick!
-
saranita
- Zygote
- Posts: 12
- Joined: 24 Sep 2009, 15:03
- Gender: Female
- Hermit crabs: 5
- Total gallons: 15
- Total tanks: 1
-
CrabbyJo
- Coenobita
- Posts: 1849
- Joined: 21 Jan 2009, 13:31
- Gender: Female
- Hermit crabs: 7
- Total gallons: 85
- Total tanks: 4
- Location: Alaska
Re: Help quick!
If you read the crab care section, there is a lot of good and accurate information there. You can trust the information on this site, as it is up to date, unlike a lot of websites and question and answers you might find in a search.
As for your crabs, there aren't "United States" and "Canada" species. Hermit crabs are not indigenous to Canada as far as I know, unless you have some warm beaches. Most of the crabs you will find for sale in the US (and probably Canada too?) are the Caribbean and Equadorian, otherwise known as Purple Pincer (Coenobita Clypeatus) or Equadorians (Coenobita Compressus). It is unlikely you'd find anything more exotic, especially if you were only told to give them fresh water.
you can use the species identifier to help you identify your crab species: Species Identifier
As for the salt water, it should be given as the ocean salt water mix sold for salt water aquariums, never hermit crab salt water (it does not hold it's salinity) or table salt. Giving salt water (ocean salt water) will never hurt your crabs, they will only benefit from it and be much healthier.
While the Purple Pincer species can survive without the salt water, they do require it to help them with molting, and your crabs are much more likely to survive molting if they've got ready and constant access to fresh ocean mix water. If they do not have it available, they recycle it from their urine, which is hard on their bodies. Remember, they live near the ocean in the wild.
If you have the Equadorian species, then they definitely require ocean water to be available at all times. Hopefully you don't have anything more exotic.
Please do take some time to read through the crab care section, I know there is a lot of info there, but it's well worth looking through. If you have a specific question, try using the search feature up in the right hand corner, or try looking in the forum related to your question. There have been a lot of posts about just about every situation you can imagine.
As for your crabs, there aren't "United States" and "Canada" species. Hermit crabs are not indigenous to Canada as far as I know, unless you have some warm beaches. Most of the crabs you will find for sale in the US (and probably Canada too?) are the Caribbean and Equadorian, otherwise known as Purple Pincer (Coenobita Clypeatus) or Equadorians (Coenobita Compressus). It is unlikely you'd find anything more exotic, especially if you were only told to give them fresh water.
you can use the species identifier to help you identify your crab species: Species Identifier
As for the salt water, it should be given as the ocean salt water mix sold for salt water aquariums, never hermit crab salt water (it does not hold it's salinity) or table salt. Giving salt water (ocean salt water) will never hurt your crabs, they will only benefit from it and be much healthier.
While the Purple Pincer species can survive without the salt water, they do require it to help them with molting, and your crabs are much more likely to survive molting if they've got ready and constant access to fresh ocean mix water. If they do not have it available, they recycle it from their urine, which is hard on their bodies. Remember, they live near the ocean in the wild.
If you have the Equadorian species, then they definitely require ocean water to be available at all times. Hopefully you don't have anything more exotic.
Please do take some time to read through the crab care section, I know there is a lot of info there, but it's well worth looking through. If you have a specific question, try using the search feature up in the right hand corner, or try looking in the forum related to your question. There have been a lot of posts about just about every situation you can imagine.
6 hermit crabs - 3 PPs and 3 Equadorians
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please feel free to share information from this website, but please be sure to give credit and a link back to the information. Failure to give credit is plagiarism. Don't take credit for someone else's information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please feel free to share information from this website, but please be sure to give credit and a link back to the information. Failure to give credit is plagiarism. Don't take credit for someone else's information.
-
Wai
- Administrator
- Posts: 2921
- Joined: 01 Nov 2004, 14:12
- Gender: Male
- Hermit crabs: 5
- Total gallons: 45
- Total tanks: 1
- Location: Victoria, Australia
- Contact:
Re: Help quick!
Salt water is a rich source of the ions that hermit crabs need for muscle contraction (the mechanism is rather complex, so I won't try to explain it here). If their diet is deficient in those ions, then they will become dormant and die due to having problems moving around. The same concept applies to humans too.
Wai
