Information about the care of
"Ecuadorian" Land Hermit Crabs
of the species Coenobita compressus

Basically the essentials are this:

1) Ecuadorians are more susceptible to temperature fluctuations and change in humidity. It is important to keep a stable temperature or they can become stressed and perish. In this, they are very similar to Aussie Hermit Crabs who have the same compressed eyestalks and look alike.

2) Hermit Crabs need a small amount of Sea Salt or synthetic aquarium salt (Doc Wellfish or Instant Ocean) to replace that which they would receive in the wild. They roam closer to the water's edge than their Carribean (C.clypeatus) cousins so it is important to offer the saline solution in a salt water pond. A recommended dosage of Instant Ocean is 1/8th of a teaspoon to a quart/Litre of de-chlorinated water (some people just put a pinch of Sea Salt/I.O.).

3) Ecuadorians are a lot more active than their (usually larger) Caribbean/PP cousins and they love to eat fresh fruit (mangoes, apples, strawberry, melon and other tropical fruits); vegetables (carrot, broccoli, spinach, pea, pumpkin, celery); salad vegetables (alfalfa sprouts, bean sprouts); seeds and nuts (peanut, almond, cashew, walnut, pecan, sesame seeds, etc.). Most have a penchant for peanut butter! Crablover Don often made up a buffet of fruits for his little 'uns and then followed it up with a Stress Coat bath. In the wild, Ecuadorian hermit crabs love to eat seaweed, (available in supermarkets as Nori AKA sun dried seaweed/kelp); fish and other seafood that washes up on the beach, including the carcasses of other crustacea.

4) Stress Coat is a water conditioner usually associated with fish care (especially when taking home or repairing damaged tissue or replacing slime coating) that CLD started using in the lukewarm bath water because in his line of thinking hermit crabs have gills and after researching and talking to hermit crab and fish experts, they too would benefit from the moisturising and rejuvenating properties of Stress Coat with Aloe Vera. As we know when we swim in salt water, the skin dries and cracks, so a weekly bath in stress coat helps to condition the cuticle and an added bonus is that Aloe Vera is known as 'nature's first aid plant'. It has been observed that hermit crab owners have far higher success rates with the incorporation of a Stress Coat bath in their care regime. Some have noticed moults (or shedding of the exoskeleton) to occur within hours or days of the bath. Advanced crabbers actually have been known to rub Aloe Vera (directly from a plant) onto the exoskeleton of a hermit crab showing pre-moult symptoms.

5) Ecuadorians seem to need a deeper substrate due to their preference (usually) of digging down below the surface to moult. They might moult near the glass wall and make a little window to the world, but it is important not to dig them up or disturb them. Many experimented with isolation units with damp (not wet) sand with success, but be careful not to go too damp or it can be as bad as too dry, with curly limbs, unsuccessful moults and bacteria/fungus.

6) Ecuadorians have their own preferences of shells based on their anatomy. They don't have the larger claw like PP's so they don't always go for the rounder entrances. A common shell that they may be found in is a Thais shell, also known as the Mexican Rock Shell. Other types are pheasants, Aratan Land Snails, Fairy Land Snails and many others. PP's usually love the Turban, Trochus/Top and Moon Snail shells. Try and find your E a shell like the one he is wearing, but a better fit.

7) After talking with many E and PP owners over the years, and hearing of their successes with one species of crab and yet unsuccessful moults with the other type, I believe that in many cases, E's and PP's should have different moulting environments or methods. They usually get along well with members of other species but when moulting it may be best to offer them what they need in their own contained environment. It would be difficult to offer the greater humidity and deeper sand for Ecuadorian moults within the same tank as Carribean land hermit crab (PP's) moults that have their own environmental needs.

If you don't have the room or cash to outlay for multiple tanks, a solution to the problem can be achieve with the use of multiple isolation units. I presently use half gallon LivingWorld Deluxe plastic tanks that are small enough to fit inside my tank 24/7 but deep enough so that I can have 3-4 small hermit crabs in each iso at the same time. Within my colony of hermit crabs, I find that the hermit crabs that are under rarely bother each other, so I just remove the ladder that they usually use to get in and out of the damp sand iso (a choya wood branch) and close the lid so that the sand pit is now an iso and safe haven. If you have separate isos for PP's and E's or even separate main tanks with isos I do feel it is the wiser option. From what I have been told, E's really do like their own company as do the PP's.

Most of this information comes from years of talking with American Land Hermit Crab Owners from Hermies Yahoo!Groups community that has been helping hermit crab owners since 1998, especially Crablover Don who was a co-moderator until his death. Crablover Don was a pioneer in Ecuadorian care and was the first to use Stress Coat, deeper substrates, brackish water and shared his knowledge and experience with everyone he could, something which has greatly benefited the land hermit crab online community today.

I Hope this information helps you, and for more information I recommend you visit the archives Jennifer Borgesen and I have created from Don's messages to Hermies Yahoo!Groups before his passing.

http://geocities.com/CLD_on

As Don would say,

Happy Crabbing,

Vanessa

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