Ikea Detolf Crabitat Hack (Updated for Dupes)
There are many glass display cabinets that can be converted (or “hacked”) into beautiful, functional hermit crab habitats.
For years, the IKEA Detolf Glass Cabinet was the go-to option—an affordable, vertical setup that worked perfectly for housing 2–3 hermit crabs. While IKEA has since discontinued the Detolf, the good news is that very similar cabinets are still available.
This guide has been updated to help you recreate the same style of habitat using Detolf “dupes” and other comparable glass cabinets. With a little planning and creativity, you can still build a spacious, multi-level crabitat without the high cost of traditional aquariums or terrariums.
The key is choosing the right cabinet—look for all-glass shelving (no metal), adjustable shelf heights, and enough depth to create a proper substrate base. Here’s a Detolf-style option available on Amazon currently.
Even though this tutorial was originally based on the Detolf, the concepts, layout ideas, and build tips apply to any similar glass cabinet, making it easy to adapt this hack to what’s available today.
By Fred (and Chris) | Updated 04/25/26
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Tall Glass Cabinet Hacks Let Hermit Crabs Climb Up (and Give Them Room to Grow)
Hermit crabs—especially Caribbean Purple Pinchers (the most common type in the U.S.)—are natural climbers. In the wild, they regularly climb trees, roots, and dense brush as part of their daily routine. A vertical “crabitat” taps into those instincts and keeps them more active and engaged.
For years, the IKEA Detolf Glass Cabinet was the favorite for this type of build. At over 5 feet tall, it offered plenty of space for creative layouts—and it didn’t require special tools to convert.
Update: The Detolf has been discontinued and replaced by the IKEA Blåliden Glass Cabinet. While similar in style, it has a smaller footprint and lacks the interior frame that made attaching levels easy. It can be used, but it’s more challenging and better suited for smaller setups (2–3 small to medium hermit crabs).
If you’re looking for a premium upgrade, the IKEA Milsbo Glass Cabinet offers more interior space and flexibility—making it a great option for larger or more elaborate habitats.
Our original Detolf build (including lighting) cost about $130 and took roughly a week to complete. Even with newer cabinet options, you can still build something very similar with a bit of planning and creativity.
Make Sure to Include the 8 Essential Elements of a Healthy Crabitat
Using a tall glass cabinet (like a Detolf-style setup) gives you far more vertical space than most store-bought habitats at the same price—but space alone isn’t enough. A healthy crabitat still needs to meet all of your hermit crabs’ core care requirements.
This type of build does take some planning (and yes… it can get a little messy), but the payoff is a much more natural, enriching environment.
As you design your layout, be strategic with your levels and always build around the 8 Essential Elements of a Hermit Crabitat (my post with diagram and photos here). including proper substrate depth, humidity, climbing structures, and access to both fresh and saltwater. (Be sure to check out the full guide with diagram and photos in my linked post.)
The biggest challenge?
Making sure you have enough ground-level space for deep substrate so your hermit crabs can safely burrow and molt.
That means thinking beyond just stacking levels—use platforms, ledges, and vertical space without sacrificing the base. With a little creativity, you can absolutely have both.
[And only put 2-3 hermit crabs inside, see below]
Be strategic when planning your levels, and make sure you understand the 8 Essential Elements of a Hermit Crabitat (my post with diagram and photos here).
The most important challenge is maximizing limited ground level surface space to allow for burrowing and molting. Get creative!
Ikea Detolf is 16″ x 16″ and stands about 5 feet tall! Tons of climbing space for your hermies to enjoy.
Ikea Milsbo is a wider glass cabinet and my current favorite hack (measures 29″ wide by 17″ deep x 69″ tall. See it here.
How Many Hermit Crabs Fit in This Size Crabitat?
Most Detolf-style cabinets have a bottom footprint of about 16″ x 16″, so the key is using that space wisely. Even though the habitat is tall, your ground level still matters most—this is where burrowing and molting happen.
Be intentional with your layout:
- Leave plenty of open substrate space on the bottom level
- Avoid overcrowding with decor or structures
- Place one water pool on the bottom, and consider elevating the second on a secure upper level
- Expect that hermit crabs may burrow under or around water dishes, so plan for stability
For this size setup, a good rule of thumb is:
👉 2–3 hermit crabs max
This type of vertical crabitat is especially great for larger, older hermit crabs that benefit from extra climbing space—Caribbean Purple Pinchers in particular tend to love it.
Important long-term note:
It’s easy to think you have “plenty of room” if you start with small crabs—but they grow. Within a few years, those tiny hermies can become much larger, and more than 2–3 full-grown crabs will outgrow this footprint.
If you plan to keep them long-term, be ready to upgrade to a larger habitat down the road—something like the IKEA Milsbo Glass Cabinet hack offers significantly more space and flexibility.
Choosing the Right Glass Cabinet for a Hermit Crabitat Hack
The original IKEA Detolf Glass Cabinet worked so well because of its simple, all-glass design and vertical height—but you can absolutely recreate this setup with similar cabinets available today.
What to Look For in a Detolf-Style Cabinet
When choosing a replacement, focus on these key features:
- Four glass sides for visibility and light
- Glass shelves (not metal or wood)
- Adjustable shelf heights (this is critical for building levels and your substrate base)
- A metal frame or internal support structure to help secure platforms
- Tall design (ideally 5+ feet) to maximize climbing space
A typical Detolf-style footprint is around 16″ x 16″, with a height of about 60–65 inches—a great balance of vertical space without taking up much room in your home.
Why Height Matters
Hermit crabs love to climb—it’s part of their natural behavior. A tall cabinet lets you create:
- Multiple climbing levels
- Branch pathways and ledges
- Separate zones for hiding, resting, and exploring
That vertical space makes a huge difference in enrichment and activity.
A Quick Safety Note
Most of these cabinets use thin glass panels, so:
- Assembly is best as a 2-person job
- Handle panels carefully during setup
- Place the finished habitat in a low-traffic area where it won’t get bumped or shaken
With the right cabinet, you can recreate everything that made the Detolf hack so popular—just with a modern (and available) version.
Crabitat Project Costs
We transferred some of the elements of the original crabitat like the hanging coco-hideaway and ladder, the food and water bowls and artificial greenery. Besides those elements, we spent about $130 for what you see in these photos.
Here’s a breakdown of our costs for this Crabitat:
- $79 Ikea Detolf
- $10-$20 Great Stuff Pond & Stone expanding foam
- $10 clear or black aquarium caulk sealant
- $10 coco fiber brick
- $10 play sand from Home Depot
- $10-20 heat lamp short neck clip-on light
- $20 under cabinet LED bright white strip lights
*Great Stuff Pond & Stone can sometimes be hard to find. We paid $10 for a 12 oz bottle, but the current price is $20. There are some alternatives, but make sure the product adheres to glass and that it’s non-toxic and waterproof when dry!
Why the Ikea Detolf can make a great Crabitat!
- It’s only $79!!!!!!
- It’s a great-looking piece of furniture!
- It doesn’t take up much space (just 16″ x 16″ footprint)
- It’s TALL! Hermit crabs have over 5 feet of climbing space
- It has a small hole in the top to add an optional Ikea light kit
- a glass backing allows for creative, unique lighting effects!
- it comes with 3 glass shelves (used to secure bottom level substrate)
Ready? First... it's important to consider the possible challenges in using the Ikea Detolf as your hermit crab habitat enclosure, so you can plan around those challenges and find great solutions!
Challenges with building a Crabitat from the Ikea Detolf
Before investing your $79 in the Ikea Detolf, it’s important to know the challenges with this hack:
- 16″ wide x 16″ long means less surface space for substrate + large water bowls
- it’s best to use acrylic risers so deeper substrate can be used while protecting from tunnel collapse
- a glass back means no way to thread airlines and wiring through the back
- 4 glass sides are thin and breakable so you’ve got to be extra careful when building
- you’ll need to get creative and use the vertical space smartly (ie where will you put the extra shells)?
- you’ll need lots of tall-ish climbing branches
- you’ll need to connect all levels from bottom to top for easy climbing for all size hermit crabs
- decide from the start what kind of lighting you want (see below for options/ideas)
START at the Bottom, and Build UP
The Detolf is a front-opening display cabinet. How will you secure 5-8″ of substrate in the bottom if you open the door and it all falls out?
The Detolf comes with glass shelves, each 16″ x 16″. Because you will NOT be using these in your crabitat as shelves… you can use one of them to build a bottom/front solid section for substrate.
You can use a second shelf (2nd of the 3 glass shelves included with the Ikea Detolf) for the bottom. While not necessary, it will help to protect the bottom Detolf platform from excess humidity, moisture and water spilling from bowls.
What else did we do on the bottom substrate level? What do we recommend?
Glass sides are thin... be careful!
It takes two people to put the Detolf together. Don’t try to do it with just one person because it’s easy for the sides to break while assembling. Also, don’t put this in an area of your home where there’s lots of activity. If someone or something hits it, it could shatter.
Our Ikea Detolf Crabitat Hack is on a wall in our dining room where there is no close walking traffic, no real way for kids or pets to hit or crash into it.
Adding levels to your Crabitat
Hermit crabs LOVE climbing! When planning levels, consider adding a hanging coconut hideaway, plenty of wood branches, and even rope ladders!
Plan out your crabitat levels to be connected by different pieces of wood and other secure structures that all sizes of hermit crabs will be able to climb on to get to another level.
Use the Detolf wire frame to build your levels.
Building levels
To build levels, you’ll need some wood planks or plexiglass 16″ wide. You can also use dense styrofoam (see below). Use the Detolf wire frame to rest your 16″ wide wood, plexiglass, styrofoam planks on to create horizontal levels.
Build your levels at the back and keep plenty of space in the front open. Example: a 16″ length of stryrofoam should only be about 8″ from the back, leaving lots of space in front to add climbing branches, ladders and other ways for your hermit crabs to travel between levels.
Secure horizontal levels to the back of the glass enclosure (Ikea Milsbo pictured)
For more tips and ideas on adding levels, see my post created for the Ikea Milsbo hack
Tip: use toothpicks and bamboo skewers to adhere styrofoam pieces into the shapes you want. Then adhere to glass with Pond & Stone foam product.
Tip: “paint” styrofoam with Quikrete or similar cement product, then add color for rock look.
Great Stuff Pond & Stone is non-toxic once dry, and normally used in the construction of koi pond waterfalls. It’s a spray foam that expands and sticks to most everything. Spray it onto glass and metal and wood, it sticks and expands. When it’s dry you can cut away pieces to form it into the shapes and look you want, or leave it as it is (black).
Our Ikea hack crabitat used 1 1/2 bottles of the Great Stuff Pond foam to secure all wood branches, add a background to parts of the back glass pane, and create some hiding caves.
The Ikea Milsbo has extra screw holes (due to unused glass shelving) you can use to add metal brackets or hooks for extra support.
Building structures with styrofoam and pre-mixed concrete
Depending on the weight of your horizontal levels, you may need to add extra support. Ideas: look for unused screw holes (could be for unused shelving) or use metal corner brackets secured to glass using aquarium caulk.
This reddish structure serving as the middle layers in the crabitat was built from pieces of styrofoam. We started saving packing materials from various deliveries we had been getting a couple months prior to building this crabitat project.
The styrofoam is a great lightweight base material to create hideaways or structures. BUT hermit crabs WILL amuse themselves by digging into styrofoam! They won’t eat it, they just like to dismantle it for fun (kinda like what we do with those sheets of bubblewrap!).
Coat any styrofoam you use with a pre-mixed concrete or grout type of product. Pre-mixed concrete comes in small quart plastic containers and you can add a little powder concrete coloring to it (we mixed a little black in with brick color). When it dries, it’s pretty stable and the hermit crabs can even crawl on it!
Grout can also be used but sanded is better than unsanded, and you can find all kinds of colors to choose from! The downside to grout is that it tends to flake off and crack a little more than concrete does, over time and as it may be used.
Because we have some larger hermit crabs, our substrate is approximately 8″ deep. As a result, we were concerned that the tunnels dug by the smaller hermit crabs could cave in and sufficate them when under heavier elements like water bowls! We now put an acrylic display riser under any larger sized (and/or heavy) elements on the bottom substrate level. In the above photo, there is a 6″ tall acrylic riser underneath the large water pool.
Want to see what we did, how we did it and the problems this solution solves? Click here for our blog post on Crabitat Solution to Protect Hermit Crabs from Fallen Tunnels in Substrate
Great Stuff Pond and Stone Foam
This product, normally used in the construction of pond waterfalls, works great for building natural-looking elements in crabitats! Once dry, this foam can be cut to the shape of rocks or caves, tree roots etc or leave it as it is.
Coat with clear or black aquarium sealant (acts like glue) and apply coco fiber and or sheet moss. This creates a natural look for backgrounds (vertical) and shelf levels (horizontal).
Backlighting on a Timer
We wanted a very airy, open feel to this Crabitat. So we kept large areas of the back glass open. This allowed us to put under-cabinet LED light strips on the back wall in the places we wanted, so the light shined through specific spaces we thought would look cool.
These lights are inexpensive and come in different colors. We always prefer the brightest “daylight” white so our hermit crabs feel like they’re outside. You can put these on an inexpensive timer so your there is a daylight cycle same time each day.
Some extra details on the cost of elements added:
**We already had all the additional elements for this Crabitat hack including water dishes/bowls in the smaller crabitat we transferred these hermit crabs from.
We also found the wood planks (cut to 3×16″ wide each), artificial succulents and various fake greenery and climbing branches, coco-fiber/sand substrate, etc. between our garage, shed, parent’s garage and our big bin labeled “pet stuff”.
Tip: keep a large bin of pet stuff… bird cage accessories (like wood ladders and perches!), aquarium stuff (like airline tubing and airstones!), bowls, extra shells, etc. because you never know when you may want to repurpose!
Got deep substrate? Worried the tunnels your hermit crabs dig will collapse? SOLUTION!
Because we have some larger hermit crabs, our substrate is approximately 8″ deep. As a result, we were concerned that the tunnels dug by the smaller hermit crabs could cave in and suffocate them when under heavier elements like water bowls!
We use acrylic display risers under any larger sized (and/or heavy) elements on the bottom substrate level. In the above photo, there is an 8″ tall acrylic riser underneath the large water pool.
These risers are open on the bottom allowing hermit crabs the space for molting. They DO LOVE burrowing under these. Why? They tend to have a little extra moisture which makes the substrate ideal.
Acrylic risers come in all heights. Choose one to match the how high your substrate will go. 6″? 8″? Place sheet moss on top creating a nice transition to the sand substrate, which also works to capture any water spills.
Want to see what we did, how we did it and the problems this solution solves? Click here for our blog post on
–> Crabitat Solution to Protect Hermit Crabs from Fallen Tunnels in Substrate
