Hermit Crab Crabitat

Well finally, after over a year, I have redone the Crabitat. From what I’ve read you are really supposed to do a deep clean, which means to remove and replace the entire substrate, about every six months. Well that’s not gonna happen with me… sorry crabbies! My Hermit Crabs will get that about once a year, probably in the summer when I can take the thing outside and rinse it in the grass.

This isn’t a very good picture and I’ll try to get some more tomorrow.  My camera battery was out of juice and I needed to put the wide angle lens back on before taking pics of the whole tank. So now that the tank is clean and nice, my house feels like a mess. Oh well. It’s a mess, I just have to live with it.  Can’t afford to hire my friend to come clean. And I have too many dog things to clean myself. So the dog-fur dust bunnies are running rampant.

I thought I had eight crabs in the tank, but I only found seven of them.  So either I miscounted or one of them died and disintegrated or something.  I dunno.  Otherwise they seem pretty healthy.  All the shells I dug up didn’t have crabs in them, so no one seemed to be molting so that was good. I worry about that when I change out the substrate.

I need to keep track of which crab is where and who is molting and who is not… so I’m going to do this here, as well as on my Flickr page. So here we go!

This picture is of the 20 gallon long I have upstairs… there is only one crab in here. I got this tank and this crab on Veteran’s day, the 11th of November 2008. The person who gave him and the tank to me said that there may be bugs in the tank… so I cleaned it out, and gave him some new shells, and he switched shells. And he’s in isolation to make sure he’s okay.  So far, so good.  Though he may be molting under that pile of ecoearth:

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Downstairs Tank. I got this tank and the two bigger crabs on 06 Nov 2008, Thursday. I got the three smaller crabs from Petco on 07 Nov 2008, Friday (not sure why I bought them, I was being goofy that day). 29 gallon (I think, I haven’t measured it yet). Three of these crabs are out and about and two of them seem to be buried, possibly molting.

These are the two on the cholla wood. The bigger of the two seems to be doing quite good. I got him for free on KSL.com and his name was Max. The other one I got with him was named Lucy (since I have a dog names Lucy that’ll have to change) and she was in a painted shell. She is not visible at the moment.. so she is buried and maybe molting. Though when I say ‘she’ I’m guessing, I haven’t sexed them yet.

The other guy in the white shell is one I got from Petco. Seems okay, though not much movement out of him.  He hasn’t gone down to molt though so maybe he’s okay.

Oh, this is the tank where one of the crabbies was nakid for a day or two.  He is now gone, and I don’t know if he’s molting or if he got a shell.  Hopefully he’s molting. There is no bad fish smell so hopefully none of them have died on me.

This is the third guy in the downstairs tank that is not buried. He is also a Petco crab. He seems to be doing okay, though like the little white guy he hasn’t had much movement. He’s been on the cholla wood most of the time, too, with the other two crabs.

Finally, here is a picture of the whole tank downstairs. My tanks are pretty sparce right now mainly because I want to keep an eye on the crabs, and also because I don’t have much to put in them yet! Plus I have a tank at work that I’m going to be switching to a way cool 35 gallon hex my friend Christy gave me.

So there we have it! They have ecoearth substrate. Salt Water (Instant Ocean) and fresh water bowls. Wood to climb on, and food from The Crabbage Patch as well as fresh food. I need to eat more fresh food myself, and share with the crabbies!

I will post about them occasionally so I can keep track of them!

Well the crabs are in their new, permanent, home. I think they are happy. Humidity is staying up, Temp is steady. they cruised around a bit this morning but now are resting, fighting, or being more mellow. To the left is a picture of the crabitat. To the right is a picture of a crab in the back of the tank. I cannot tell the crabs apart, I wonder how people do that! They look very similar to me and I don’t know if more than one of them has switched shells.

Well they are cuties for sure. I am actually going out of town tomorrow for a week, so my friends are going to help take care of them until I get back. I wrote them a big long email and showed them the ropes, so I think these three guys will be fine.

I will try to post while I am gone, but I might miss a bit!

Yikes! The Hermit Crabs come tomorrow! They are on their way now, as I type this, overnight delivery. I’m going to get three of them. I have a temporary crabitat setup at home so they will stay here with me at night, then I’ll take them to work where I have their permanent setup, tomorrow.

Soooo…. I’m nervous! I hope they are okay.

Well, looks like I am going to need a humidifier. In less than 48 hours the humidity in the tank has dropped from 78% to 58%. That’s after I put the sand in, and the sand was fairly moist. So this is what I get for living in the desert!

So I’ll be putting one together, probably a DIY humidifier, and setting it into the tank before I get any land hermit crabs. Gotta have the crabitat right first!

Okay.. well, here is the setup! I have the sand in and the UTH on the back. Near the heater it temp is 79F. Away from the heater on the far front corner the temp is 77F. Hrm, I wonder if that should be a warmer spread. I’m not sure, I’ll have to read up.

The humidity is about 70%. That needs to be about 80%. I have to wet down the sand more, I think that will increase the humidity. I need to get some declorinator first, though, as I don’t want to just throw tap water in there.

It’s coming along. I’m now checking out some medium land hermit crabs to populate the tank with. I’m thinking 3 at first. Maybe 4. I’d eventually like to get 5 total, but we’ll see how that goes.

And I want to knit a hemp hammock to put in, but I need to find where to buy some good undyed hemp. And I’d like the back to have a climbing wall, probably a tightly knitted hemp climbing wall.

I’m getting excited!

Which, in any other context, might sound like a bad thing. I put the sand in the tank today and, of course, forgot my camera. I’ll have to take some pics next week.

I plugged in the UTH – Under Tank Heater – and put in my thermometer and humidity meter. So it’ll go all weekend and when I get back I’ll see what the temp and humidity are, and then adjust accordingly.

I hope some crabbies like this tank. I put about 2.5 inches of sand in. I have more, if the crabs I get are bigger than this. But I think I want hermit crabs about that size.

[tags]hermit crabs, crabitat[/tags]

I stopped by Home Depot last night and bought sand. And it has no silica in it, so I’m pleased. I had some sand with silica and had to ask if they have any without, which they did. Sand is very cheap! And this beach sand is brown, which I like better than the stark white. It’s more natural.

So I’m going to bring it to work today, and hope to remember my camera, and set it up! Yay! Then I will wait for a few days to see how the temp and humidity are before putting crabs in.

Okay… tomorrow I plan on going and buying some play sand. I’d like to mix some shells in it… is it shells to add calcium? Now I forgot. But really sand is the only thing left that I need. And then I can start adding crabs.

Unfortunately the glass lid I bought is not fitting the tank perfectly. It is about 1/2″ too short length wise, and I think about 1/2″ to wide. I’m not sure what to do about it. I am probably going to try to rig something up, but I don’t know what, to get it to sit securely on the tank and not fall in, and yet be easy to remove, too. I think I have an odd tank size.

I’m excited, I want to get some crabs!

Not with crabs! I’m going on vacation for a week starting tomorrow, so won’t be posting until I get back. I did try the lid on the tank and it’s just a touch too narrow. Not sure how I’m going to fix that. I don’t want to send the lid back just for that. I might put something on the tank itself to hold it up.

I am busy busy busy with packing and getting dogs for rescue. So bye for now!