Many people like to keep hermit crabs as pets in the cage inside their houses. And if you are going to do something similar, you should know about their diet and hydration. For hydration, “can hermit crabs drink bottled water” is the most asked query, which I am going to explain in this complete guide. So, keep reading!
Do Hermit Crabs Need Water To Drink?
Like every other animal inside or outside your house, hermit crabs need proper hydration for survival.
Whenever there is an idea of getting some hermit crabs inside your house, you must ensure their needed hydration, diet, and other daily care.
So, yes, a hermit crab must drink water to stay alive. Suppose you will not provide this animal with the needed quantity and the exact type of water. In that case, it will get dehydrated and eventually die.
Hermit crabs also need water because they thrive in almost tropical conditions.
For that, they sometimes need a high temperature along with the desired humidity level. This actually means the hermit cribs get thirsty, and they do need to drink water. However, the right type of water is still concerned, which shall be explained in the below sections of this article.
Can Hermit Crabs Really Drink Bottled Water?
A study found that hermit cribs need water to stay alive, and that’s very true. If they do not drink, they will not be able to breathe.
But when water for these creatures is concerned, providing them with bottled water becomes a great concern.
In short, hermit cribs can drink bottled water as it is clean, healthy, and free from impurities. Providing them bottled water to drink means providing them a solution for the best hygienic and safest drinking habits that will not come through your ordinary tap water.
Besides, Bottled water also contains a lot of minerals that are considered healthy for these animals.
So, bottled water is important for everyone out there who is not provided with fresh, clean, and superior water quality.
You can read more about bottled water in our bottled water-ultimate guide, as things are explained more wisely over there.
What Type Of Water Is Best For Hermit Crabs?
You can make your hermit crabs addicted to many types of water. But providing the wrong water source means affecting the healthy lifestyle of these small but important creatures.
These animals use their claws to scoop water directly into their mouth, or they may store it in their shells.
If you provide them with the right and needed amount of water, their optimal growth is confirmed.
However, that’s also true that not all types of water are considered safe and healthy to drink for these pets.
But usually, these creatures get their maximum quantity of drinking water through two sources.
Fresh Water:
You can pronounce fresh water as any type of water available at your hose, whether from a filtered or non-filtered source.
Fresh water is only the one that has been moved through a lot of chemical processes and made clean as well as safe for drinking.
Usually, bottled water comes into this category. I’ll also explain why you cannot just rely on tap water when it comes to providing the crabs with needed water daily.
One Saline or Salt Water:
This is something additional you will add to the water to improve its quality and make it worth drinking for your pets.
We can add marine salt to the spring water we get through Spring Bottled water. And in this way, you provide your pets with the right type and right composition of water.
Will Bottled Water Provide Any Harm To The Hermit Cribs?
As far as the usage of bottled water is concerned for these mere animals, there will not be any harm to them.
Because hermit crabs need water free from all types of impurities, it should be something they drink to stay a healthy and long life.
Also, in their growth, water holds great importance.
Therefore, you can trustfully rely on bottled water because helping those crabs grow with it will not harm them.
However, remember that you need to keep the lids above these water bottles while providing water to the enclosures of hermit crabs.
Because according to the Hazardous Material Journal, if there are any wild hermit crabs, they might get trapped in plastic water bottles. This can be prevented by restricting access.
What Should Be The Temperature Of Bottled Water Being Served To Hermit Crabs?
While being a caretaker or even a parent of your pets, you must also ensure the right water temperature that you need to serve them.
Their drinking water should be served at room temperature. The reason is that these animals have a nature of living in a tropical climate.
Therefore, if the water is placed inside their living for a long while, it will get hot.
There is no point in providing Lukewarm or hotter water to drink for these animals. These crabs can even don’t determine the temperature of the water by themselves.
And if there is hot water near them, they might be submerged in it without even knowing. This reaction may have them burning skin problems and other dangers.
Therefore, if you are using bottled water (preferred), you must ensure that it is a little cold or should be at room temperature at least.
Otherwise, providing them with hot water will not be a great idea, and certain risks to their health.
How To Provide Hermit Cribs The Bottled Water For Drinking?
Giving them the best natural spring water through a quality water bottle brand is not easy because you have to take care of multiple things while keeping good hydration for these pets. But no problem.
The reason is that once you are here, I will explain this in the following sets as to what is the right way to provide bottled water to these animals.
Step 1: Taking Care Of Hermit Crabs Scooping Action:
The hermit crabs usually come with a larger claw and a smaller claw which help them scoop water so they can drink it.
Their claw function is that they can even drink water while sitting in a pool or alongside it.
They just use their claws to scoop up the water and drink it.
Therefore, you must have to ensure that in whichever bowl, pool, or enclosure you make water available for them, it must reach their mouth.
This water bowl should be nearer where scooping can be done easily and comfortably for these small creatures.
Step 2: Ensuring Numbers Of Bowls Or Pools For Crabs Hermits:
Once the bowl or pool has been decided, the next thing comes with providing the right mix of water to these animals. Above, we have seen that we usually provide the hermit crabs with pure salt water.
Therefore, there shall be two pools or bowls of water to keep these pets happy and hydrated.
- One pool of water should contain fresh or pure bottled water taken from any famous water bottle brand.
- And the second pool or bowl of water must contain salt water.
However, you should know that hermit crabs usually take one or two freshwater sips. Don’t be scared if it takes at least two gulps of the saltwater. A little one will never overdose on it.
Besides, you can use some shallow plastic dishes that provide the crabs an easy way of climbing into them without tipping the dishes above them.
Moreover, you can also keep or place some small river rocks, pea gravel, and other pieces of natural sponges and dishes.
These shall be placed at the bottom of the dish so that this additional may help the crabs easily move around inside these plastic dishes.
Plus, this will also give them some depths created to choose one of their favorites.
Step 3: Providing The Safest Water To Hermit Crabs:
Ensuring the safest water for them is the most important step to giving them proper and needed hydration.
For this, one should always rely on having both of these pools of bowls of water filled with bottled water or distilled water.
These types of water are better than your ordinary tap water because they don’t contain harmful chemicals and bacteria.
However, while filling up the pool, be sure to keep the water levels a way deeper enough so that these crabs can easily submerge a bigger part of their body and the shell into it.
But it shall not be so that they may completely drown it.
When adding salt to one of the water bowls or water pools you have selected for your crabs, always use Ocean Salt.
It should not be that ordinary table salt. Because in most table salts, you will find iodine harmful for these cribs.
MThiseep the water is changing daily to avoid debris and other dirt that may be present in the pools of water.
Step 4: Keep Water Into The Shells Of Crabs:
Making those hermit crabs hydrated enough will not be enough only. You should know that they must also keep their grills and bodies moisturized.
Doing this is crucial to help them stay in a relaxed environment and grow. However, the best way is to keep or hold some water in their shells.
Sometimes, the crab is sitting in a bowl or pool of water; depending on whether it is pure water or salt water, it may not be drunk.
Instead, it may just keep replenishing his shell water. This process for the hermit crabs is essential to stay alive and survive the other day!
So, these are all the things one should take care of while providing bottled water to hermit crabs.
Bottled Water Or Tap Water, What’s Best For Hermit Crabs And Why?
Some people don’t care whether tap water or bottled water and give any type of water from any source.
That should not happen. The water you might provide to your pets can indeed be toxic and harmful for them if it does not come from a vital source.
Therefore, we should always know the good and bad sides of water if it comes from the ordinary water supply of your house through a tap.
Or you buy some water bottles from a water bottle outlet or store. Please have a look!
Tap Water:
Even without knowing and testing, most people keep providing tap water to their hermit crabs. But tap water can be toxic due to the following reasons.
- It has chlorine, which is not considered safe for a healthy body. The more chlorine in the water, the more it will affect these pets’ health.
- Tap water has many other Bacteria, Debris, pollution, and toxic or harmful chemicals that cannot be seen through the naked eye. These are also dangerous for crabs.
- Suppose the water supply lines of your area haven’t been cleaned, and you are not using any filtration system for your tap water inside the house. In that case, hermit crabs will not live longer with you.
Concerning these reasons, you can still use tap water if you install a high-quality filtration system in your house.
Besides, this tap water can also be converted into drinkable water when treated with the Declorinator.
Bottled Water:
Bottled water has the following characteristics compared to tap water.
- Bottled water, if coming from a highly reputed brand such as Aquafina, Fiji, Dasani, Nestle Pure life, etc., will provide you with the healthiest water to drink. Something like this is also best for your crabs.
- Bottled water contains minerals, including magnesium, potassium, calcium, etc. These minerals are proven to be best for your hermit crabs.
- Have bottled water because it gets filtered through a complicated and comprehensive filtration system. This water is usually the one your hermit crabs are looking for.
For these reasons, we can conclude that bottled water or Natural Spring Water through bottles is always better for these pets than ordinary tap water.
Because tap water is always harmful and bottled water is always a cure.
Table Comparison To Choose Between Bottled Water And Tap Water For Hermit Crabs:
To better understand which water is best for the hermit crabs, please look at the table below.
| Factors To Consider | Bottled Water | Tap Water |
| Mixing Of Chlorine | Cannot Be Found | It can be found in a great quantity |
| Healthy | Meeting the local and Govt water health standards | Not meeting the Local and Govt health standards sometimes |
| Production | Produced through comprehensive filtration systems | Sometimes, tap water doesn’t get any filtration system |
| Reason To Choose For Hermit Cribs | High quantity of healthy minerals like magnesium, calcium, etc. | It doesn’t contain enough minerals that may help the hermit cribs have better hydrations. |
| Cost Factor | It could be a little expensive mean to arrange water for the hermit crab, | Not really; it is available for free in most countries. |
| Suppose used regularly, | Better health, more energetic crabs, and better growth. | Slower growth and diseases may lead to the death of these crabs sometimes. |
Can Hermit Cribs Drink Distilled Water Bottles?
If there are any water bottles with distilled water and you have chosen them for your hermit crabs, you can use the distilled water for your hermit crabs.
Because using something like this is even better and cheaper than buying those de-chlorination drops and adding them into tap water to improve its quality and remove chlorine.
Therefore, tap or bottled water is perfect for your hermit crabs.
How Long Can Hermit Crabs Go Without Drinking Bottled Or Any Water?
Hermit crabs don’t rely on bottled or any other water always. They need it when they are a lot thirsty and when you know that it is the perfect time to hydrate them.
For sure, they can easily go without eating any food and drinking any water for almost two weeks.
However, it may look like these crabs are not drinking water. But they always have enough water stored, which they can use wisely in the long run.
So, never underestimate them for two weeks once you have provided them with enough food and water.
Final Thoughts:
Conclusively, hermit crabs need water, and there cannot be anything best than providing them with such water through bottles. Such bottles are always created to meet the approved water safety and purification standards. Therefore, there is no problem you can find with using bottled water for these creatures. So, I hope your confusion on whether hermit crabs can drink bottled water has been cleared.
Let me know if you have more queries to ask. Thanks for reading and being attentive. Have a nice day with your nasty hermit crabs!
References:
Wikipedia. (2020). Hermit crab. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit_crab.
