Doing my Resarch, willing to help?

[quietthinker]

Hello, this is my first post here. I've recently decided that I'm going to make a crab paradise, a "crabadise," if you will. I am saving money and researching right now, and i hope to have it ready by mid-fall. I'm trying to learn everything I can, but I'm having trouble finding some specific information, and I was wondering if you guys could help me out.

My questions are:

Is it ok to have a waterfall in Crabadise?

How often must the substrate be changed (I'll be using either sand or coconut fiber.

Is it alright if I use storebought crab food as the main food, but add plenty of stuff to it. (I.E., fruits, veggies, meat, etc. are all added to the food. It gets at least a couple of these items every day.)

How friendly do hermit crabs get? Do you feel like they know and love you? I'm not expecting them to form strong emotional attachments to me like a dog would, but it would be nice if I got the feeling we were friends.

I plan on having the following in a 20 gallon terrarium or so. I want a log pile (those storebought fake logs) a log bridge, a coconut hut, a Crabworx brand hotel, at least one bathing dish and a drinking dish, a pile of extra shells, a waterfall, an unobstructed path across the tank for running, a couple of fake plants, maybe some moss, some sponges in the bowl, and a climbing net-type thing attached to one of the walls of the terrarium. This would all be for 4-5 crabs.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure I'll come up with more. I've tried searching for this stuff on the forums, but I feel like I'll get a better answer if I ask you guys directly. Please know that I'm trying very hard to make this Crabadise a real crab paradise, so if I'm suggesting something stupid, I don't mean to. This website's been a great help, and I hope you guys will help me give four or five crabs a really happy life. Thanks!

[ladybug15057]

Please do read the crab care section, many of your questions can be answered there.
In the top right of the screen you will note a search box that will bring up more detail to the questions you have. All have already been covered here at Hermit Crab Paradise either in the crab care section or the forums in detail.

[CrabbyJo]

Ladybug is right, you can really find the answers in detail to your questions using the search feature. Not that we don't want to help, we are more than happy to, but you will definitely get more info if you try doing a few searches on here, as opposed to trying to search the web, which is full of bad and misinformation.

Try searching: Waterfall
Commercial foods
preservatives
Play sand
Eco earth

etc. Once you've read a bit, and have a more solid idea of things, you'll probably have more questions that are hard to find the answers to, so ask away!

btw, no to the commercial foods. You'll read why

[quietthinker]

Ok, sorry to sprout another unneeded topic. I couldn't find the search bar before, but now I see it. Thanks.

[ladybug15057]

As CrabbyJo mentioned sometimes there may still be a question one has even after reading all the info within HCP. Sometimes it is just a little tweaking question that might need a tad more detail after searching and reading. We are more than happy to help, but some of the info does go into great detail and better to read it for all the detail it contains.

[CrabbyJo]

yep, well said Marie (Ladybug).

And something I forgot to say, good for you for doing your research first! So many people do not, and end up losing a crab or more before they are prompted to find out what may be wrong with their setup.
You're well ahead of the game!

Can't wait to hear what you come up with once it's all purchased and set up.
We love pictures.