Terrestrial Hermit Crabs

[oceanblue28]

I am an avid crabber of the coenobita persuasion. I have fallen in love with them. I have been keeping them since April of 2007. I have to say though, that my dearly beloved crab, Hermes, a compressus, had passed away from a bad molt just this past Christmas. He was the crab that got me into keeping hermit crabs. My first crab.
Anyways. Here are some pictures of the crabarium or crabitiat as some call them.

I currently have 5 clypeatus' and one very naughty violescens who needs to have a seperate tank. She is the one in the water dish, wearing the pink murex shell.

 

[swords]

Neat, when I was kid my uncle had one that was about the size of softball. he was a true houdini, no tank could hold him!

Do you put Iodine (Kent Marine Iodide) in their water dishes? The guy who sold me the Geosesarma crabs said he had molting problems until he started using 1 drop of Iodine per 5 gallons of fresh water. Other keepers of "Vampire Crabs" have confirmed this to me. Apparently more Iodine is bad but 1 drop is good to stop bad molts. You'd have to ask on some crab forums about the usefulness of Iodine on hermits though.

 

[oceanblue28]

Actually, from what I have assertained, iodine is lethal to hermits. Thus the reason for using marine grade salt water instead of adding idodized salt to water to make salt water.

 

[swords]

I would imagine table salt was bad for them (it's bad for humans too; Heart disease, High B.P....) however if you look at the label on the "Water Safe" product for hermit crabs it has .007% Iodine along with traces of calcium, dechlorinators and other stuff. I was going to buy some today while shopping for cork bark tubes but I already have the Kents enough to treat 16000 gallons (the small bottle) and I use R/O so there ought not to be any chlorine in my water.

Since the red Vampire Crabs rarely go in the deep water pool (they like the shallow pool better) I bought one of those calcium blocks shaped like a seashell, do they really eat/pick at these things? Would a cuttlebone for a bird be better/the same thing? I use a cuttle bone in my Isopod culture bins. I've also been dusting their feeder crickets and fruitflies with Reptocal. They really love tropical fish flakes and Isopods (pill bugs/rolly pollies).

 

[Hermopolis]

Actually, from what I have assertained, iodine is lethal to hermits. Thus the reason for using marine grade salt water instead of adding idodized salt to water to make salt water.

Iodine is required by crustaceans in order to molt. Iodine is a supplement often given to reef tanks to help molting in marine hermit crabs. Marine grade salt water is used because it is not just NaCl but is a complex mixture of a lot of salts including other chlorides and sulfates. The problem with "iodized salt" is that it doesn't make sea water but that it makes a solution of NaCl with the wrong specific gravity that is incompatible with marine life.