Replacement Hermit shells

Waters · Dec 31, 2013

I have a bunch of shells that were collected in Sanibel and/or purchased at one of the "shell" stores from that area. Are those able to be put into the aquarium to be used as replacement hermit crab shells? Some of them are obviously polished but a lot of them look natural.

Connie · Dec 31, 2013

Yeah...they should be fine. If you want to be really sure, you can boil them for a minute or so and let them dry in the sun.

chefb_5 · Dec 31, 2013

whatever u do don't try to put bigger shells in there! I did and I thought it would be a cool idea to let the crab get bigger by putting bigger shells. That crab got so big that he eat all my fish or sliced the belly's open. 150$ worth of fish. That was when I first started.

silverado61 · Jan 2, 2014

I thought you had to put a variety of shells in for hermits because if they out grow the ones they're in and can't find a bigger one they die.

Waters · Jan 5, 2014

Yeah, you unfortunately can't limit their size by not supplying shells. Mine are tiny scarlet hermits anyways...definitely not worried about them eating my fish at this point

chefb_5 · Jan 5, 2014

well my advise is don't let them get any bigger than a quarter! nothing good comes after that size I think they should just die after that. I personally like snails because don't have to worrie about shells and they clean every thing not just rock and sand.