Bathing your crabs

     There are a lot of people that say bathing your hermit crabs is unnecessary and possibly even harmful. There are almost as many people who say otherwise. Personally, I'm up in the air. I have bathed my crabs once when I first brought them home because a lot of the substrate from the pet store remained on their little feet. 
     I had also read on a website that "Hermit crabs that you just purchase from a pet store should be bathed, if to only get the grime off them and make them "smell the same" to the other hermit crabs. New molters should also receive a quick and gentle bath once they have emerged from their underground molting hide-outs. New molters retain a smell of shed exoskeleton and smell like a delicious treat to other hermit crabs. To prevent cannibalism, you bathe them and wash off this molting smell. Remember that your hermit crab cannot tolerate chlorine, so please be sure to dechlorinate the bath water. The temperature of the water should be about room temperature. For a really special hermie bath, put in a couple drops of Stress Coat®. Most people bathe their hermit crabs in dishes, mixing bowls and plastic containers. Take your hermit crab from his crabitat and try to get him to walk down your hand or arm into the bath water. If he won't then you can slowly lower him into the bath by himself. Set him at the bottom of the 'tub' so he is fully immersed. After a minute, take him out of the bath, whether he comes out of the shell or not. NEVER leave a hermit crab unattended in the bath, as bathing makes them very active and they might crawl out and possibly run away and get lost in your home. Drain the excess water from his shell and allow him to dry off. Some people have special 'playgrounds' for their crabs to exercise in while drying off. Their 'drying off area' can be a simple as a shoe box with a paper towel in it to absorb the excess moisture. Place your dried-off hermie back in his crabitat and sit back and watch. They are incredibly active after their bath time and love to explore!" and "If you keep the humidity level of the crabitat at the desired level (above 70% relative) then bathing is actually stressful to the crabs. This is not to say that hermit crabs should never be bathed. What they need is to be able to bathe themselves when they feel the need. You should provide them with dishes of dechlorinated water (both fresh water and salt water) deep enough that the water will flow into the crabs' shell when the crab climbs into the dish. That is approximately one full inch of depth for large crabs, and a half-inch or less for smaller hermies." 
      I continue to read where I find this: "IMPORTANT: ALWAYS PROVIDE A WAY FOR THE HERMIT CRABS TO CLIMB OUT OF THE POOL!  Add a snip of sponge, a shell or pebbles, but always, ALWAYS have something in the pool they can cling to if they are uneasy with being in the water or especially if smaller crabs tumble in by accident. Some species of hermit crabs are terrified of exposure to water."  Isn't that contradicting "How to bathe a crab"?  (highlighted in the same color above*) So after reading my favorite 'go to' site for hermit crabs I started looking for another. (Website here*)
      I have come to follow the 'no bathing rule' without even realizing it if only because when I looked up "bathing a hermit crab correctly" everyone was doing something different. I was told when I purchased my crabs that bathing was a must, now I know that this isn't so - number one rule for first time pet parents, of anything, do your research and don't always listen to the sale's person.  
     Here are some of the Youtube.com videos I have come across in my search:

     I do not normally follow Expert Village's advice but I watch the videos anyway lol. I have learned in a short period of time, before I had hermies, that they weren't always the best. Sorry, but its true! However every once in a while they are right :3

     Here the girl in the video shows us the full submersion bathing which I think can drown the the little crabs...  

     In this video I feel bad for the crabs, I think he's moving them around too much and stressing the little things out :(

     Anyway, there were a lot more videos I watched but this post is already pretty long so I'll just say one last thing, lol. As I've stated before, I did bathe my crabs once and I think I will again in the future but it isn't something I plan on doing very often. I think bathing your crab is optional and gives you time to bond with your little buddies. 

Until next time,

Pearl Popping~