hermit crabs

do you get hermits down your way? if so do you have any info on their natural habitat. my daughter has one, he's great but we don't know much about them and i can't get him to eat properly, he's going blue when he should be red, all he's eating is japanese nori flakes and i don't really wanna keep giving him chunks of bread

we get them in the shops here.You do mean the ones that live mainly out of the water.

Those ones are scavengers as all of the hermits are,but they mainly eat vegetables.

You could give them oats,sultanas.

Lots of veg and some marine meat.

The shops sell specific pellet foods for them as well.

Oh and this dominating the forum,go for it.

We have not had the forum very long and you are more than welcome to spread a little knowledge or just talk.

Nice typing to you.

Don't forget some clean drinking water for them

ive been giving him allsorts, he seems to prefer lettuce n seaweed, i'd love to see what they're like in their natural environment and maybe get good ideas on better stimulation, he does love to rummage about

i promise to behave myself! and if i get the urge to waffle on, my self timer will shut me down!!!

hi vawn.
keep trying,the little buggers will eat your finger if you let them.
It's realy good to see words from a long way away from you.
Hey what does herp stand for.
Yeh i know i am dumb.
i have seen it many times yet i have no real idea as to what it stands for.

herp is short for herpatology, the study of exotic animals, similar to zooology. my exotic animals are thusly refered to as the herps :-)

Thanks for that vawn,much appreciated.

little **** give me a fright when he molted! thought he'd climbed outta his shell n died!!

Crustaceans can be a pain when they do that.
Te first time I saw that they shed, so complete that you think they are dead or there is another one there, was when I was a kid and I was snorkelling at a town we lived in at the central coast in The state of NSW.

The town was called (the entrance) basically the holiday area for Sydney.
I was fourteen and had never got a crayfish when I saw what I thought was a big green Cray.

I swam down really excited to get my first Cray, grabed it as fast as I could and my fingers went into its shell, as it was empty.
I was so confused, but after a little while I found the Cray that shed and grabbed it and it was all soft and squishy.
I did the same thing again about four years ago near a place called flinders reef, near Bris.

Over the years I have had crays, shrimp, crabs, etc shed and I still remember the day I saw this phenomena for the first time.

You know what is incredible, when a large Cray shed once in my tank I had a close look at it and when this thing shed, it left its hairs, outer eyes, everything, a perfect copy of it’s self.

That means that when they separate from there shell inside they have a new hair, eye everything inside the original part of them before they drag it out, swell and harden.

One night a lot of years ago, my ex called out and said the Cray in your tank is dying.
It wet through the whole process in front of us
.
It took about eight minutes.

I am glad your herm is doing well!

it's mad though eh? i saw his little 'body' and picked it up, all hairy and his little eyes i really thought he was a goner then his periwinkle shell started to slowly mooch away...!

little blighter copped it this time. i think maybe his shell didn't firm up after his molt

(vawn the multi poster can't delete excess posts on beta device)

delete me!

What happened to craby.
You didn't get to attached to the little shell carrier did you?
We went on a trip today and there was the prettyest big hermit.

It was red with white and black spots.
Bigger than a large hand.
Scary looking.
i found a way to get them out of there shell.

it was my youngests (not compis enough for her own snake), she was devastated. what was the local beach sand where you found the herm? i know he wasn't red enough cuz of his diet but i tried all sorts, thats why i think it was related to the molt, he came out blue. what was the kinda beach debris like where you were, there might be some clues

Thats sad vawn.
(For some reason there has been some probs with the forum last night and the other day)

The hermit we saw was under the water,not the type you have i don't think.
I hope your youngest gets over it quick,kids normaly do when they get distracted.
The big one we saw is quite common around here and they normaly are into the algae.
i had one in a tank for a while and it ate anything,including a couple of slow fish.
i took it out of it's shell on its own for a while,it looked like something out of a horror movie.
Sorry about your youngests pet.

she's o k now, maybe i can trust her with a little corn snake. specially at least till i figure out what happened, the crab pretty much only ate his seaweed n stuff like that

k so she's been given three more! got 'em some cucumber. definately diet prob caused other one's death. being off colour main indication

one of the new hermits has molted and looks really blue i've give him some algae :fingerscrossed

one of the new hermits has molted and looks really blue i've give him some algae :fingerscrossed