To learn how to care for a hermit crab, it is crucial for you to get very familiar with its natural habitat and living. Otherwise, your hermit crab pet would only die in a few weeks' time after buying it.
Before getting a hermit, a healthy environment must be organized first. Everything you need to set up a hermit crab home can be found in a pet store. You have to buy an aquarium or glass tank, seashell containers, sand, rocks, corals, hermit foods and so forth. You can just ask the pet store staff for all the things that you must have for raising a hermit.
Upon getting home, begin making the hermit crab home by placing the aquarium or glass tank in a clean area where there is enough lighting. It has to be in an area where you can easily spot it, so that you would never forget to take care of the hermit crabs. Pour the sand into it and arrange all the accessories around it. It is best if the sand you have bought is fortified with calcium since this nutrient is a basic need for hermit crabs. Since hermits live in the tropical scene, make sure that there is around 70 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit of temperature and at least 70% of humidity surrounding the hermit crab home. Anything lower or higher than the requirement is not going to give hermits the chance to survive.
After that, you can now buy hermits from the pet store. It would be much better if you buy a group of them since they love to socialize. Make sure that you choose healthy crabs that wear natural shells on their backs.
Introduce the hermits to their new home. Provide them with food, dechlorinated water and saltwater. Water is an extremely essential part of their lives since they need it to have moisture all the time for their gills. Enjoy watching them explore their new habitat as they also get to know each other. At times, you would find them playfully digging into the sand.
Aside from the hermit crab home, you need to buy extra shells as well for them to have new ones after the molting process. Never provide them with painted shells. Give them a variety of shells with various sizes and styles. In that way, you can distinguish them from one another. You can also have fun by giving each of them a name.
Another thing to remember on how to care for a hermit crab is to clean their place monthly. Their food and water dishes should always be washed and cleaned as well by water. Fill it with new food and water everyday. If you let food sit in for more than 24 hours, this would cause molds and bacteria to appear.
From time to time, you can take your pets out of their home to play with. When it is your first time to do that, it is better to wear gloves to avoid getting pinched. But if you are not scared, then you can handle them with bare hands. Once you get pinched, don't swing the hermit around to lose their grip on your skin as this would aggravate it more. Just relax and dip it in warm water. Hermits are not fast creatures so it is all right to let them roam around your table or couch. However, keep a close eye on them. When they sense that you are there to care for them, they would then feel comfortable in trusting you and interacting with you.
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