Empty Bottles - The Ballad of Sebastian the Hermit Crab

Empty Bottles - The Ballad of Sebastian the Hermit Crab

This is something I first wrote when Jennifer was 7. Updated today with the REST of the story...

The Ballad of Sebastian

Doreen Philbin, Herit Crab Aficionado, April 2005

My seven-year-old daughter and I just returned from Connecticut with Sebastian Berry (the fruit, not the name) Philbin, the hermit crab. We found him (it?) in a mall kiosk, where Jennifer worked me like a second job to get him. Naturally, I asked the seller a lot of questions first. The small “crabitat” was $19.95, a clear plastic container with a colorful vented lid, complete with sand, two little shells and a sea sponge for food and water, and a cute plastic palm tree with a “Made in China” tag. Food was an extra $2.99; we got an additional painted shell for the little guy, as they evidently like to swap. Despite the man telling me they are not literally “hermits” at all, but that they need companions, I figured a stupid bug-like critter in a shell couldn’t possibly “need” much of anything, so we stuck with one. The crab, mind you, was FREE. It was the fancy crabitat that cost twenty bucks.

Thus began the saga.

Back at my sister’s house, the care sheet included information like, “If you are unfortunate enough to get pinched, hold the contact point under medium hot water. This will normally make the crab release.” I said to Jennifer, "What do you suppose we do if that doesn't work?" She considered it a moment, and then said, "I guess you pretend it's jewelry!" Only seven and already a comedienne.

The care sheet explained that hermit crabs live inland, away from salt water (they only visit the ocean to breed); their optimum temperature is between 70-75 degrees, and they enjoy being misted daily (no tap water, mind you – chlorine is toxic to them). It warned against heaters that would dry out the crab, so we pondered how to get Sebastian through two New England nights before our return to California. After some discussion, my sister Debbie brought the heat lamp from the chicken coop into the bathroom. This seemed about warm enough.

I had now spent $26 on a bug with a colorful shell. But hey, I figured it was a good first pet -- quiet, clean, hypoallergenic, and fun to play with (not counting that pinching thing). Jennifer had great fun taking Sebastian out, bathing him (the care sheet said they love baths twice a week, so we gave him one every day… if a little is good, more is better, right?), and watching Debbie’s standard poodle sitting mesmerized at every little antenna twitch.

Finally, it was time to head home. In the airport, when Sebastian’s bright orange shell with matching crabitat failed to capture the notice of hopelessly unobservant passers-by, Jennifer would announce in a loud voice, “I sure love my new hermit crab. I hope Sebastian likes the plane ride back to California!” This was usually sufficient to get people asking questions.

I worried about Sebastian going through the x-ray security machine, only to grow a mysterious third eye weeks later. To my relief, the TSA reps smiled indulgently and passed the crabitat safely behind the equipment. I made a mental note that if I ever needed to smuggle a Swiss Army knife, I knew now just what to do.

Once home, I made the mistake of doing a Google search on hermit crabs. Wow. It began to dawn on me that we had purchased a pet that can best be described as “dry-clean only”. Apparently, they come from a very tropical environment. They need both salt and fresh water. And remember, no tap water. They must be between 72 and 80 degrees: any lower, and they slowly freeze; any higher, and they begin to smell musty and emit a brown discharge, resulting in death. Ick. They also require 70% to 80% humidity. Any lower, and their modified gills dry out, slowly suffocating them. Any higher, and they get all moldy. Web pages provide recipes for favorite crab treats, awards for crabitats-of-the-month (this month’s winner was two stories high), and lots of help forums for crab care. There is even a website dedicated to Jonathan Livingston and Crab Kate, who are over 25 years old and the size of softballs. One picture of these impossibly huge crabs next to a thimble had me shuddering.

Trying to be a not-too-neurotic-but-still-conscientious pet owner, I promptly headed to Petco to create a better crabitat. I decided on a bigger fish bowl that we already had. To keep Sebastian warm at night, my husband Brian rigged up a nightlight on an extension cord that we duct-taped to the bowl. Then, I decided that since crabs are nocturnal, he needed darkness. So I tried wrapping our old heating pad around the bottom of the bowl, which seemed nice and toasty. I bought more empty shells, a better sponge, more substrate (uh, dirt) at $5.99 per quart-sized bag, and now I was up to about $75 for our “free” pet.

I was up twice during the night to check on Sebastian and look for signs of life with my night-vision camera. I felt a ray of hope when I caught him eating some fresh apple. As for the poop we’re supposed to dispose of daily, my stepwife (Brian’s ex) said she’d had hermit crabs for two years and still didn’t know what their poop looks like. I suppose this should make me happy.

As I read more, I realized that poor Sebastian really did need a friend. And the painted shells had to go. Fanatical internet posts described in grisly detail how crab farmers brutally stuff these guys into toxic painted shells, and how ”rescued” crabs, when given the choice of natural shells, switched into them with lightning speed. Plus, hermit crabs need a variety of shells to pick one that feels just right and to avoid shell fights.

So I decided if we were going to do this, we would do it right. I borrowed an old larger terrarium, and back to Petco we went for more supplies and a friend for Sebastian. Jennifer chose a slightly smaller one in a flashy black and yellow shell, and we set up yet a third crabitat for our new charges. We also needed extra sponges so we could rinse and dry them out daily to prevent bacteria or mold from collecting in the humid environment.

The new crab was on speed compared to Sebastian. His little antennae would flail around wildly, and he could jet across the table with alarming speed. We named him Dash, after the speedy super-boy in “The Incredibles”.

We put the crabs into their new home, with playground sand from the hardware store (MUCH cheaper than the pet store substrate and recommended by Petco.com), a hermit crab heater designed to stick on the side of the terrarium (I didn’t want to go overboard with an under-tank heater), a coconut fiber covering for one wall for climbing, attractive fake foliage, and a couple more shells. The crabs found each other relatively quickly, and their little antennae whirred away as they said hello.

Leaving them to get better acquainted, I resumed my online research. We would soon need a separate isolation tank for annual molting. They dig under for two weeks (they’re only dead if they smell like fish), shed their exoskeleton, and then eat it. Ick. Close-up photos of pink, freshly molted crabs.

The next morning, I checked on the crabs and discovered with horror that Sebastian’s entire pincher claw was lying detached on the sand. My head spun. Did Dash rip it off? How did I not see this coming?? I KNEW Dash would be aggressive when I saw how hyper he was! What kind of crab owner was I??? Jennifer was frantic and begged me to exchange Dash for a calmer crab.

I immediately sent emergency pleas for help to a hermie newsgroup (one at which I had scoffed only days before – look how neurotic these people were about stupid crabs!). A couple of fanatics… er, crab owners came quickly to my aid. Turns out over-bathing and stress can make them drop claws. Gee, let’s see… did Sebastian have a stressful week? As I described his purchase, cross-country transport, daily baths, relocation to three terrariums followed by the instant introduction of a new crab, I began to suspect that I would have chewed my own arm off under similar circumstances. I was advised to isolate poor Sebastian, stop bathing him, and see how things went. My new mentors assured me they’d never seen a crab actually rip the leg off another larger crab, and that Sebastian had probably dropped it from stress or to avoid a potential shell fight. It’s called “autotonomy” and is quite common in the crab world. I had a mental image of Sebastian becoming so overwhelmed that all his legs would drop off at once like dominos, leaving him wriggling helplessly on our overpriced but attractive (did I mention it glows in the dark?) substrate.

My new Internet friends convinced me to give our neurotic new crab another chance. Jennifer had now begun calling him Syndrome, after the villain in “The Incredibles”. My mentors assured me that with time, he should settle in. So I divided the tank in half and bought an under-tank heater and combination temperature/humidity gauges. But with the terrarium divided by a cardboard partition, I fretted that Sebastian, who was on the warm side, would fry, and that Syndrome would freeze. I was leaving for the weekend in only a day, and I really wanted to get the two of them on speaking terms before then (I had yet to hear the chirping noises like those posted online by doting crab owners).

I left Sebastian totally alone for a whole day and a half, covering his crabitat with a dishtowel for privacy and providing such delectable treats as crushed egg shells (for calcium). I peeked obsessively under the cover and was relieved to see him quietly eating, probably grateful that I wasn’t dunking him in water or switching his home or pitting him against Syndrome.

After a nearly sleepless night of worry, I decided to throw caution to the wind, put them together, and let nature take its course. Jennifer made me promise that if we found one more leg on the sand, we’d take Syndrome back and find a less aggressive pal for Sebastian. I was thinking more along the lines of returning Sebastian, disguised as the defective crab. But by now Rachel at Petco recognized me by sight, and I didn’t think I could slip it past her. She’d heard the whole saga and, to her credit, she hadn’t once looked at me as though I were insane.

I daringly removed the partition, and within minutes Sebastian seemed to actually be bullying Syndrome, who had burrowed into the sand for safety! Maybe I had it backwards all along. Maybe my crafty Connecticut crab had faked his own injury to trick me into returning Syndrome for a girl. Maybe Sebastian’s first week with us had pushed him over the edge and he had become a serial crab killer. Who knew what he'd be capable of??? In any event, if Sebastian was the aggressive one, I was confident that Syndrome (whose name had now been restored to “Dash”) could handle it (his shell fit well for maximum protection against bullies).

So, I headed off on my trip, leaving detailed instructions for Brian while I was away. When I returned, both crabs were alive and had apparently called a truce. This little twenty-buck crab had now run me about $165 (including the extra food dishes, the corner wooden hidey-hutch, salt water conditioner, Stress-Coat for the bath water, and another shell). Jennifer appeared to have lost interest. Maybe my obsessive fretting over them during the past week had awakened sibling rivalry in her mind. Maybe I was beginning to need therapy.

The funniest part of this whole story happened when Brian -- who had begged me to stop reading websites about hermit crabs after I began relaying tales of people finding maggot eggs in their crabs’ shells -- was looking over the original care sheet from the Connecticut mall. “Honey,” he said casually, “I’ve been reading this, and I think there are quite a few things here that we’re not doing for this crab.” I burst into hysterical laughter.

But the ultimate irony was saved for today. Nearly two weeks after beginning this adventure, we appear to have lost a hermit crab to that great beach in the sky. Had Sebastian finally succumbed? Nope. It seems that Dash, the vibrant, energetic, really cute one, has gone belly up – literally. I picked him up this morning and breathed hot air into his shell, which normally causes them to loosen up and emerge. I even tempted him with some fresh apple. Nothing. Well, this afternoon, I’m noticing a decidedly fishy odor. How very ironic. Back to Petco tomorrow for another victim! But hey, I have a $2 coupon from a previous visit!

UPDATE !!!
I am adding this now, in 2015... because I realize I never finished our journey...

Shortly after this (it's all a blur, fully ten years later), Sebastian finally, mercifully, bit the dust. But the story doesn't end there. We fashioned a coffin for him by taping together two plastic cups, and Jennifer decorated a rock as his headstone. We buried him in a little dirt patch in our back yard. 

Then, I made the mistake of reading more. It seems that when the crabs prepare to molt, they might appear dead and give off a fishy odor.  Molting, it turns out, is a crucial stage where they shed their old exoskeleton, then eat it (for the calcium, of course), and re-emerge to find a well-fitting shell from the assortment of larger, non-painted shells you would have thoughtfully supplied them.

So I started thinking, what if Sebastian hadn't actually died? What if he was only molting and I, thinking he was dead, had buried him alive?? So, a day after burying him, I explained this to Jennifer (I am SURE this is why she is as weird as she is today), and together, we dug up the little coffin. I prodded him and looked him over pretty thoroughly. Nope. He was dead. And smelly.  Sheepishly, I re-buried him, and thus ended our venture into hermit crab ownership. Really. That's the end. I promise.