Hello! New Owner Here! Have a question about cleaning sand.

[siian]

Hello. We are a new owner of hermit crabs. We have been reading everything like crazy and we have set up a pretty nice little cage for our crabs(3 of them). They seem to love it and are really active at night. We wake up to empty water dishes and trails all over the cage. We have a nice cave for them and two branches and other obstacles for them to play around.

However I have a question. We have been cleaning the cage by scooping out the top of the sand and sieving it and placing it back into the tank. We do this by putting the three crabs in a smaller tank for about 30 minutes while we move everything around and clean all the sand out.

I was reading that people don't clean their cages that often. We have been doing this every 2 weeks or so. Is this too much for them stress wise? Should we wait longer periods.

I tried searching this but I didn't find anything that answered this particular question.

We love these little guys, we have them in the kitchen and love watching them while we eat. We have a really active guy who is always doing something even during the day.

Also, where is a place to find a nice assortment of shells? We need more for our guys to choose from. We feel like three isn't enough for them.

Thanks for the help! We are loving them so much. We have been looking at some of the fancier cages online with hanging nets and water ponds with rocks. It just seems like sooo much to clean if we have all those foilage and stuff.

[Wai]

Cleaning every two weeks is a bit more often than average I would say. I guess it depends on how dirty the tank gets too.

[siian]

Thanks!

They poop a lot. But I felt it was a lot too. Maybe once a month is better. We had a few issues with mold on the tree limbs we had in there. However we are drying them out in the bright sun today. They were in the wet sand. So we are going to place them on rocks this time.

Any tips on places to buy an assortment of shells?

[siian]

I found some shells today on amazon from sellers with good reviews. I didn't realize how expensive the shells can be. However I am excited for my little family members to get out of those painted shells that they came in from the store. I really dislike the look of them. Plus I imagine they dislike them too.

It is so amazing how each of the crabs have their own little personalities.

I didn't realize how expensive these little boogers end up being. I work with ceramics and I made a walk in double sided bath for them today out of clay. I will fire it to 2300F once it dries and then they should have an easy place to walk down into and submerge themselves for a bath. I am not going to glaze it. I figure they would rather have the raw stone feeling over a slick surface. Looking forward to that. I built ramps with grooves so they can walk into it and out of it no problem.