Create your own Crab Habitat : My How-to guide

One of our Home Vivariums

Ending the year building "a crabitat"

Our vampire crab colony lived in a 90L terrarium for four years until I decided to move them into an Exo terra (45x45x60cm)  - the idea was that it would give them more useable space as they could be able to climb the walls and trailing plants.

Well that lasted six months as, as it turns out, crabs eat EVERYTHING! They ate their nice custom background and poisoned themselves on the expanding foam.  Since the vivarium was heavily planted it took me a few months to notice there was a problem, I became suspicious when I failed to find even one baby crab where ordinarily I'd be pulling twenty a month! Once I started pulling plants out it became obvious what had happened and I immediately got to fixing it.  

Step by step

1. I started by finding our old 120L aquarium, cleaning it up and moving it into place.

2. I made a drainage barrier out of aquarium sponge to separate the land from the water section and held them in place with rocks and roots.

3. I poured gravel on one side of the divide and clay balls on the other; this is done to prevent the substrate from becoming waterlogged.

4. The clay balls were topped with a drainage mesh to keep the substrate from slipping down between the balls and becoming stagnant.

5. Next is the substrate; I use 1/3 organic compost, 1/3 cococoir, and 1/3 organic bark chippings.

6. I threw in two scoops of Isopods and Springtails to act as the clean-up crew for the vivarium. Springtails will eat any mould growth whereas the isopods will eat left over food and crab poop before turning it into lovely organic fertilizer for the live plants.

7. We went simple with plants – pothos, bromeliads, peperomia, a tropical fern and dwarf monstera on the land side, then jungle vals and hornwart in the water section for water purity. 

8.  I then added leaf litter and mosses to cover the substrate and braced myself for the real challenge – catching the crabs! It took over an hour but I managed to catch 19 vampire crabs of all sizes and didnt get nipped once!