Hermit Crab Habitat Cleaning Tips: Keeping Your Pets Happy and Healthy
Hermit crabs are little but they can still make a mess of their habitat! To ensure your hermit crabs stay happy and healthy, maintaining a clean habitat is crucial. Keeping their home clean with a regular maintenance schedule makes things easy.
In this article, we’ll provide you with valuable cleaning tips to create and keep a healthy environment for your hermit crabs to stay healthy and happy for many years.
That’s right, a hermit crab’s lifespan is years! Hermit crabs can live past 20 years pretty easily in captivity when well cared for. Check out my article Hermit Crab Pets Live Longer Than Dogs here.
What Does a Healthy Hermit Crab Habitat Look Like?
- clean substrate
- clean water
- fresh foods (not rotting or stale)
- clean extra shells and decor
- no mold or mildew
- no overcrowding
Clean Substrate
Top layer skimming:
The top layer of the substrate should be skimmed at least once a week with a scooper.
Over time your hermit crabs will drag food around the habitat, and they poop. A scooper shovel will sift out the old food and poop, and drop the clean sifted sand substrate back to the bottom.
Substrate Replacement
The substrate should be replaced periodically. The smaller the habitat, the more often you should replace it. Here’s some more information about hermit crab habitat substrate here.
Clean Water
Replace water:
Water dish water should be replaced with clean detoxified water every day for small dishes and bowls.
If you have a larger, deeper water pool, replace the water every few days.
Make sure to thoroughly clean the dish, bowl, lagoon or pool before adding new water.
Tip: if your water bowl/pool is deeper than 2.5 inches, there are mini filters that can help to filter the water. You’ll need a mini air pump which has an electrical cord, so make sure you have a way of placing the cord from inside to outside without allowing space for your hermit crabs to climb out.
For more ideas on larger water pools for your habitat, adding filters, water plants, air stones and moving water… see my article Hermit Crabs Love Moving Water here.
Fresh foods (not rotten or stale!)
Leftover food can attract pests and lead to bacterial growth.
Food in dishes:
Fresh foods should be removed and replaced after a day. The more moist the food, the faster it will start to rot.
Hermit crab foods like pellets and crumbles can be left a little longer, as long as they aren’t touching other fresh foods (rot will spread and contaminate other foods and water and anything else it touches).
Food everywhere else:
Hermit crabs like to drag their food around when you aren’t looking. They’ll take food from their food dish and drag it to places you may not even see.
For molting when they burrow into the sand, they’ll bring food with them as well.
So food WILL end up all around your habitat over time, making it even more necessary to clean regularly.
What about VACATION? Wondering how to keep the habitat clean while you go away? See my article on Hermit Crab Care While on Vacation… here!
No Mold or Mildew
Make sure there is good ventilation. Hermit crabs need to breathe! Often, in an effort to keep high humidity levels, owners will shut off fresh air from their habitats. But this only helps to breed mildew, mold and other bacteria growth. Also, remember hermit crabs come from the ocean’s edge where there is always fresh ocean air.
Best hermit crab habitats will use a wire mesh top to allow plenty of ventilation OR a reptile terrarium with a top or side panel made of wire mesh.
Important tip: not all types of hermit crabs need high humidity! If you have Caribbean Purple Pincher hermit crabs (most common in U.S.), your habitat should NOT be a rainforest inside!!! Keep your parameters similar to what it is in Key Largo or Key West. How? Check out my article on Hermit Crabs Need Heat which also has tips on humidity, here.
There are different species of hermit crabs, and each has different needs, as they originally come from different areas and climates around the world. Which type of hermit crab do you have? If you aren’t sure, check out my article on Hermit Crab Types of Pets with Photos here.
There should be NO MOLD OR MILDEW in your habitat. If you have any, you’ll want to find the source and fix things. Leaving old food in for too long? Not enough ventilation? Too much moisture? Most issues can be resolved easily once you figure out the problem.
No Overcrowding
Overcrowding is a common issue mostly with new hermit crab pet owners. You hear that hermit crabs are actually social and like huddling in groups, and think… let’s get a group! However, if your habitat is too small, the overcrowding will cause a bunch of issues like molting challenges, increased bullying behaviors, increased waste and more.
Only 2-3 super small hermit crabs can fit in a 10 gallon hermit crab tank, and this should be temporary. Hermit crabs molt and grow, molt and grow… and then again. Each time they go through this natural growth process they get bigger.
They need space away from other hermit crabs to burrow and molt in the substrate. They need space to hide when they want to be alone. They need to be able to eat and bathe and sleep without needing to compete with others.
For ideas on starting with a 10 gallon hermit crab tank, see my article 10 Gallon Hermit Crab Habitat Ideas with photos here.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Are there any specific signs of an unclean habitat I should watch for?
A. Yes, signs include foul odors, excessive waste buildup, mold or mildew growth, and stressed behaviors of your hermit crabs.
Q. My hermit crab’s shell looks dirty. How should I clean it?
A. Gently clean the shell with a soft brush under lukewarm running water. Avoid using harsh chemicals or soaps.
Q. Can I use bleach to clean the habitat items?
A. It’s best to avoid using bleach or other similarly harsh household cleaners as they can leave toxic residues. Stick to mild soap and water as a cleaning solution whenever possible.
Last update on 2024-04-27 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API