Reading with a Side of Life

Why don’t hermit crabs ever share their snacks?
Because they’re a little shellfish! 🦀

If your hermit crabs are having molting mood swings, showing signs of brittle shells, and/or walking around with sluggish scuttles? Yeah, it’s probably the menu. Let’s fix that.

Meet Carl. Yes…Carl. He is the first hermit crab that we adopted in 2024 from the waterpark shop. He has taught me so much and has always been so brave around us. He came in a cheap wire cage and now lives the life of luxury in a 50-gallon tank with 80/80 heat and humidity, as every hermit crab should.

Now why you are all here:

Why Food Variety Matters

Look, unless you have done a LOT of research, you probably think that the food that you purchased with your shelltastic friend is what they are supposed to eat. Unfortunately, the food that is often sold with hermit crabs actually kills them. Yes…you read that correctly. Imagine if dog food that is sold with a puppy actually killed them?

Hermit crabs require a diet with lots of variety, just like we do. If you have more than one hermit crab, then you also have the diet ready to support their molting cycles, which can be a day or up to SIX MONTHS. Also, they are picky eaters and just simply will not eat certain foods at certain times. I consider them mood eaters, but really it is no different than when we have cravings; it is often a sign that our bodies need certain vitamins and minerals. I call it the “munchies and molting meals.” Please visit here to have access to a downloadable guide to feed your picky pinchers correctly.

The Menu: What I’m Feeding Them & Why

• Greensand and Worm Castings: Always in the tank. However, Carl was currently throwing their greensand shell around the tank like the hoodlum that he is, so I added extra green sand to their crabby charcuterie board. I guess he wasn’t in the mood to throw literal poop around this time.
  • Greensand is a staple mineral supplement that is required for a complete diet. Greensand comes from the ocean floor so it has all kinds of goodies in it. The primary ingredient is glauconite, but it has a ton of other minerals in it. Hermies LOVE to eat it and supports proper metabolic function.
• Candied Apples Organic Treats: Treats should be given sparingly—just like us. Let’s not binge that whole bag of chocolate, Karen. This has apples and strawberries, which fruits should be given 2-4X a week, but there should always be more protein than anything else on their plate. Coconut palm sugar, which is pretty much just a carbohydrate, just like the popcorn, but with a few other trace minerals, makes my hermies love their sugars and makes them very active at night because they love their sugars. It also has sunflower seed pieces, golden millet, nyjer seed, canary seed, and canola seed, which are all good fats for them. Here is the link if you want to buy this for your hermit crabs.
• Summer Soup: Which-I am not quite sure what exactly is in this, but I did see toasted oats, spirulina, soldier fly larvae, sunflower seeds, some shells, and coconut flakes.
  • Unfortunately I could not find where they sold this anymore on their site, but they have SOO much more to offer.
• Chum Bucket: Yes…I did buy this because of SpongeBob. Come on! Chum Bucket?! Awesome name. This has lots of protein, such as minnows, tilapia, mysis shrimp, bonito flakes (cool name as well), and shrimp meat. Then it also has crushed seashells, crushed coral, and crushed oyster shells to keep that calcium and exoskeleton strong. And to top it off, some kelp and coconut. Here is the link to buy this meal as well.
• Walnut Oil, Sesame Seed Oil, and Safflower Oil: Oils should be organic and given sparingly since they will get oils from their other foods as well. But it aids in hydration as well as supports an overall strong exoskeleton and supports healthy molting. Kevin and Carl just got up from molting, so I wanted to make sure they were properly oiled up.
• Peanut Colada: This has ground soldier fly larvae, peanuts, pecans, pepitas (pumpkin seeds if you didn’t know what that was because I sure didn’t), sunflower kernels, pistachios, black sesame seeds, pineapple, beets, deer antler powder, and coconut flour. Again, lots of fats, protein, magnesium, and iron in this bad boy. Here is the link if you didn’t know you needed this until now and now have to have it.
• Fish Bone Meal: Pretty self-explanatory, but good calcium and other supports for their system. Here is the link for this.
• Chunky Monkey: This has bananas, peanut butter, plantain flour, oats, coconut flour, cranberries, honey, hibiscus, dragon fruit, beetroot, raspberry leaf, lobster meal, and puffed rice.

Hermit Crab Care Resources I Trust

Reliable sources for information on how to take care of your exotic pets

• https://crabstreetjournal.org/
• https://www.youtube.com/c/crabcentralstation
• The Complete Guide to Land Hermit Crabs and Their Care: Changing the Mindset of Hermit Crab Keeping https://amzn.to/4k2TLrc

Reliable Vendors that I trust to not poison my crabby children

• CrabPax on Etsy
  • https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrabPax
• NaturallyCrabby on Etsy
  • https://www.etsy.com/shop/NaturallyCrabby
• CrabcuisineCo on Etsy
  • https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrabcuisineCo
• South of the Ocean on Etsy
  • https://www.etsy.com/shop/SouthOfTheOcean
• Happy Crabitat
  • https://www.etsy.com/shop/HappyCrabitat

Reliable Shops for Shells-Because they needs LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of shells. Hoarders of all the shells

• Nessastores on Etsy
  • https://www.etsy.com/shop/Nessastores

Shell-ebrate With Us in the Comments!

Please leave your comments, pictures of your crabby friends, and ideas for us to share to ensure that all the hermit crabs out there get the nutrition and love that they need. Remember, they are supposed to live for the next fifty years! I want to see what you guys are doing for more inspiration and ideas.

Next time? We’re talking enrichment in the tank to get your crustations crawling around!