# hermit crabs



## bobbymoore (Oct 11, 2011)

i have some hermit crabs will they hurt my sully if i put them together?


----------



## Az tortoise compound (Oct 11, 2011)

We use hermit crabs in our indoor enclosures. They are awesome little scavengers and help keep things tidy. If your sulcata is young they will co-hab just fine. An older sulcata will probably eat a hermit crab if it sees it.


----------



## CtTortoiseMom (Oct 11, 2011)

Along the same thinking could I put one in with my Leopard hatchling? Could they introduce diseases?


----------



## Tortoise (Oct 11, 2011)

That is very interesting_i wonder if they would be ok with the Red Foots or Hinges too. I always like to see the Hermit crabs.
I wonder if the torts may consider them food as a lot of species are opportunistic

Anyone else mixing hermit crabs with tortoises?


----------



## coreyc (Oct 11, 2011)

CtTortoiseMom said:


> Along the same thinking could I put one in with my Leopard hatchling? Could they introduce diseases?



They are find with my leo's I need to get a few more now that I have more leo's


----------



## flyingsqueak (Oct 11, 2011)

I keep hermit crabs too, but they are separate from my tortoise. An environment that is ideal for a tortoise will not be good for hermit crabs and vice versa. Hermit crabs do best when kept on moist sand--like you would use to build a sandcastle. They need to be able to dig firm burroughs in it, and they need 80% humidity. If you don't care if the hermit crabs live less than a year when their natural lifespan is believed to be more than twenty years, than go ahead, I can't see them causing any harm to a healthy tortoise (they might try to eat a very sick and inactive one).


----------



## HipsterTorts (Oct 11, 2011)

What about keeping the hermit crabs in their own enclosure, but putting them with the tortoise for like an hour or two a day? 
Would that help with cleaning or would it not really make a difference?


----------



## CtTortoiseMom (Oct 11, 2011)

flyingsqueak said:


> I keep hermit crabs too, but they are separate from my tortoise. An environment that is ideal for a tortoise will not be good for hermit crabs and vice versa. Hermit crabs do best when kept on moist sand--like you would use to build a sandcastle. They need to be able to dig firm burroughs in it, and they need 80% humidity. If you don't care if the hermit crabs live less than a year when their natural lifespan is believed to be more than twenty years, than go ahead, I can't see them causing any harm to a healthy tortoise (they might try to eat a very sick and inactive one).



Okay, I cannot do the sand because it will be bad for my tortoise but I use cypress mulch and my Leo burrow's really deep in it. I have my hatchling in a 4ft by 2ft vivarium with a plexi glass cover I keep it at 70% humidity and temps ranging from 75-cool side to 95 degrees on the hot side. If was really diligent in keeping the humidity up, do you think this would be a suitable environment for two hermit crab's?

Corey, are your hermit crab's thriving with your Leo's?


----------



## bobbymoore (Oct 11, 2011)

my humidity level's are constantly at 80%-90%


----------



## SarahSanders (Oct 11, 2011)

I have hermit crabs does anybody know if its safe to keep them together????


----------



## Jacqui (Oct 11, 2011)

I have this fear that a crab would eat an egg if it found one. Would it?


----------



## CtTortoiseMom (Oct 11, 2011)

I have a fear that it would introduce a disease or the two crab's would gang up on Chewy


----------



## flyingsqueak (Oct 11, 2011)

The crabs would definitely eat an egg, and cypress is no good for them. If you used the coconut coir/sand mix it could work, but would still not be ideal. If you have a tortoise that doesn't eat bugs and want to introduce something to eat the poop and spilled food, you could use springtails or isopods. I use those in my gecko viv, lots of people use them for frogs and geckos. You can find them on lots of websites, neherps is one.


----------



## Madkins007 (Oct 11, 2011)

Keeping Red-foots and hermit crabs has been done for years in Europe, and I had a nice herd in my habitats until the most recent iteration. I am not as sure it works well with grassland species, but the forests and near-forests are OK. I had never read any concerns about eating eggs.

The humidity is OK for both species, there are no cross-species diseases we know of, they don't eat each other... although you do want to make some effort to match sizes as the tortoises WILL try to nibble on the nice calcium-loaded shell. 

My crabs often dug into clay pots with the damp sand, but just as often dug into the cypress (which was always wet at the bottom because of the heating ropes) and seemed to have done quite nicely. 

If you DO keep crabs in there, keep a small herd. Here is my favorite crab care link- http://hermit-crabs.com/care.html


----------



## TortBrain (Oct 11, 2011)

My Leo & hermit are fine staying together. They even eat together during meal time and some times, hermit is riding on Leo. Lol! Looks funny.
Just a note, monitor on hermit's diet as they can't solely have veggy forever. Unlike the tort.
It doesn't really help much in the mess but then, it's another cute pet


----------

