hermit crabs

[jimpierce]

Just wondering, do hermit crabs fight a lot? I Had a bit of a battle royal going on for a minute today. lol

[jbeining75]

Hermit crabs can be rather aggressive lol.... they tend to dither a little as time passes.... they get into scraps and bang each others shells lol...... they usually get more docile the longer they are in a particular habitat......

[cocoa_pleco]

do you have lots of spare shells? if not they may be fighting for the others shell. lol, youve got some rage in the cage!

[jimpierce]

we have a lot of spare shells. In fact a couple of them are changing shells a couple times a day!! lol

[cocoa_pleco]

lol, i guess theyre playing roman gladiators then!

[jbeining75]

playing a deadly game of musical chairs.....

[karbomb]

have they suffered any real wounds? missing legs, claws? if not i wouldn't worry at all.

[jimpierce]

no wounds since I got rid of the red one I had. He liked eating the other crabs.

[cocoa_pleco]

no wounds since I got rid of the red one I had. He liked eating the other crabs.

maybe the red one just wanted to go eat at red lobster?

lol, but seriously, i have no idea why theyre fighting, some are just troublemakers

[sen5241b]

I have two and they scrap a little. In the ocean they will fight to the death over a shell. I've noticed, if there is limited hiding places they may scrap over that also.

QUESTION: What do you feed them and how much? I've been giving two of them a pinch of fish flakes a day.

[jimpierce]

I'm not sure if I feed them directly. I feed 1/4 cube of either mysis shrimp or formula one every day. Every third day 1/3 cube of formula 2 and 3/4 teaspoon phycopure.

[sen5241b]

2 Hermit Crabs Scrapy & Curious
So today they start fighting. Curious (less aggressive) retreats in his shell. Scrapy (the more aggressive) grabs the other's shell and starts slamming himself into Curious's shell. We can her the clinking sound! Finally Scrapy reaches in and rips Curious out of his shell and takes it for himself --only to abandon it 10 minutes later. Curious scampers off and hides in the rocks with no shell.

[jimpierce]

awwwwwwww poor Curious!!!

[Fenix]

Thats a cool story. I dont feed my crabs they jus eat my hair algae.

[Tigerbarb]

From what I've heard, they tend to fight for food, and they will even fight small fish. You should definitly make sure it gets enough to eat.

[rageybug]

Our hermits scrap it out all the time. They get more than enought to eat and have tons of new shells to choose from. They just like to kick some ass from time to time. Nothing to worry about. If I had a giant claw I'd do some kicking too!

[labnjab]

We have 3 times as many shells as crabs and they still fight, and there's plenty of hair algae and scraps for food. Its just their nature, they love to fight and kill each other, lol. The will stop eventually. I have one large blue-legged one who seems to be the boss, and if he sees a shell he likes, he gets it, although he's been in the same shell for a month now, so he must like it.

[cocoa_pleco]

old thread

[labnjab]

wow, didn't even notice, lol