Questions

Crazy Crabs are actually land hermit crabs. Their latin name is Coenibita variabilis. These crabs are native to Australia and are slightly different to species found in the United States. In the USA some species of land hermit crabs live in desert regions, with others are found along the coastlines in warmer climates.

In Australia, land hermit crabs are usually found along beaches and around mangrove swamps in the tropical northern regions. Land hermit crabs live in large colonies and move between the sand dunes and the high tide mark at different times throughout the day. Hermit crabs are nocturnal. During the daylight hours, they spend most of their time snoozing amongst low growing vegetation or buried in the sand. At night, they venture out to the beach searching for food, bathing and exploring new shells to move into.

In Australia, land hermit crabs hibernate inland from the coast underground, between late April and late August, the winter months.

Land hermit crabs breathe air, and drink fresh water. Their life cycle has two stages, an aquatic stage and a terrestrial stage.

Aquatic

Terrestrial

These crabs are crustaceans and have a hard exoskeleton on the front half of their body, the rear half is soft and needs to be protected from predators, that is why they require a shell to live in. The main predators of land hermit crabs are birds and other crabs.

The crab squeezes its' soft body into the shell backwards. On the end of their body is a small "hook" which then grips the internal spiral inside the shell. This keeps the crab securely inside the shell. It is most important that the shell is the correct size. If too large, the crab will have trouble lifting and carrying it around, and if too small, it just won't fit. A little like buying new shoes! Crazy Crabs prefer a lightweight seashell as it has to be lifted slightly off the ground as the crab walks along. Heavy seashells drag and make climbing over obstacles more difficult.

In the wild Crazy Crabs eat a wide variety of foods. They eat almost whatever they can find either by the waves washing it up onto the beach, or scraps other animals leave behind. They are one of the many natural scavengers on the beach.

Their main diet consists of seaweed, cuttlefish, driftwood, dead fish and washed up fruit including mango seeds and mangrove seed pods. To a Crazy Crab, the beach is a banquet!

In captivity, they do like a varied diet, so they can be happily fed a number of different foods. "Crazy Crab Chow" is a great base diet which can be supplemented with some fruit and vegetables. These crabs eat around a match head of food every few days, they have very small tummies, so remember to remove uneaten fresh foods like fruit before it spoils. It will make their home smelly and bacteria can breed.

A little cuttlebone from the beach is a rich source of calcium for the crabs, they need calcium in their diet.

Crazy Crabs need to drink plenty of fresh water. They cannot drink salty water as it causes dehydration. Fresh water should always be available, preferably in a shallow dish so that they can crawl in and out easily. Crazy Crabs will drown in a deep water dish if they cannot get out.
Terracotta bowls allow the crabs to grip the sides as they move in and out of the water. Make sure the sides are not too high for the crabs to climb over to get a drink.

Most tap water contains minerals and chlorine. If your tap water is high in metals, use cold boiled water instead. If your water has a lot of chlorine, leave it stand overnight before giving it to the crabs. The chlorine will evaporate from the water overnight.

Another way to remove chlorine from your tap water is to purchase some dechlorinator liquid from your aquarium shop. Read the directions on the bottle on how to use it.

Land hermit crabs store water both in their body and also inside their shells. Green algae can form inside the shell, this algae coating protects the crabs' soft body from irritation from sand inside the shell or rough internal shell edges. This algae is harmless to the crabs' health.

In the wild, land hermit crabs obtain moisture from the food they eat, also from dew on plants amongst the dunes in the early morning. This dew trickles down into the sand along the plant stems.

When crabs are small and living in the ocean as plankton, they have a certain amount of salt within their body. After they come to land, this amount of salt is reduced, and because they only drink fresh water, they need to replace the salts in their body.

In the wild, the crabs get this salt from bathing on the shore, and from crawling around on wet beach sand as they look for food. Some would be obtained from the foods they find there.
In captivity it is a very easy task to keep your crabs' salt levels right. There are two ways you can do this:

1. Once a fortnight, you can give your crab a weak salty bath. By placing some room temperature water with a pinch of rock salt into a shallow bowl, either pick up the crab by his shell and gently dip his legs into it, or just let him crawl in and out at his leisure. You can leave this salty water in their cage, but don't forget, they only drink the fresh water. Some people find it easier to do the bath every few weeks, and just supply fresh water everyday.
2. If you have beach sand in your crabs' enclosure, the salts from this sand will end up mixed with their drinking water, so will create a somewhat saltwater bath. It won't be as strong if you replace the water every day, so should do your crabs no real harm.

The salt water helps clean their skin too which can become sticky from fruits and mushy types of foods.