Luna Tail

Well I haven’t been posting much lately, as ya’ll know! I got into posting for about two years, the standard time I can maintain an obsession, and now it’s fading a bit. Though I still do like to blog and so I will try to keep up on it better.

I got a couple new hermit crabs that I need to post about… I bought them off a local free newspaper listing. They came with a tank that I plan on reselling. The crabs seem fairly healthy, strangely enough, and they are big guys!  Both are molting now as they came in a tank with barely enough sand to push around with my finger.  I hope they will have successful molts and be happy soon.

This picture is of some toy furniture my Mom has… I love these. I haven’t even seen them in years. They bring up such great memories.  They are old 60s toys and hrm, I wonder if they are worth anything. Maybe I should take some to the Antique’s Road Show!

I’m going to a flyball tournament this coming weekend so, again, my posting will probably be sparse.  Hopefully I’ll have internet though. No playstation 3 for me though… I’ll be on my feet all day, and when I get home it’ll take me probably 3 days to recover. UGH. I wish I was in better shape!

Well, of the six Hermit Crabs I have at home, two of them died.  I put them in a zip loc and out in the freezing cold as a burial.  Bummer. On a good note, though, three of them seem to be doing well. They have all come out of their molt just fine.  I have two tanks at home, the upstairs tank is shown below, and has all three of the healthy crabs in it.

Hermit Crab Tank

Downstairs there is only one crab left, and he is still molting. Hopefully he hasn’t died during his molt. I haven’t smelled anything bad yet, but then I didn’t smell anything bad from the two that didn’t make it, either.  As they come up from molting in the downstairs tank, I move them upstairs.

So of the three crabs pictured in my previous crabbie post on November 16th, only two survived. The guy in the lone picture didn’t, unfortunately.  Hopefully the last guy will come out of his molt soon. But he’s been down for over a month now, so I’m not sure if that means he didn’t make it or not. I’ll wait a while longer before I dig for him.  Once that tank is empty, I’ll tear it down, I think, and just keep the upstairs 20 gallon long. Maybe I need a tv stand for the tank… hrm. It’s on the entertainment center now.

Here is a picture of the latest guy I moved from the downstairs tank to the upstairs.  He was also pictured in the post from November 16th.  I think he’s a good healthy guy! *Crosses Fingers*

Hermit Crab

So that’s the Hermit Crab update for today! 

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!

Okay.. I know, I’m bad. I like hermit crabs and I can keep them alive. It’s taken a year for me to get enough confidence to get more crabs.

There was an ad in a local online classifieds that two little hermit crabs needed a home, for free. So off I went and I snagged them! They were just in one of those small plastic cages that you buy in the store. Some boring sand. No humidity, no heat… they seemed very unhappy.

So my husband went off and got this used aquarium, a 29 gallon, for $35. It has a stand, too, which is nice. It was dirty so I cleaned it out. And while I was at the pet store looking for heating… dangit, there were some sad crabs there too so I got three of them. Ugh.

These five are very small, much smaller than the ones I have at work. I was going to put this 29 gallon tank at work, and take the smaller one and bring it home. But I like the stand so I will probably keep this tank here. I might, however, bring these five little guys to work, and bring my three bigger ones home. I haven’t decided yet.

It depends on how these five little guys do. I want them to settle in and get a bit healthier first. They now have 80 degrees and 80% humidity. I need a glass lid for the tank, and a white light on them so I can see them during the day! They also have good food and good water. So hopefully they will perk up and get happy!

Isn’t he a cutie!? I love hermit crabs. And… strangely enough, I haven’t managed to kill them off and it’s been a year since I’ve gotten them.

Yay! I tend to kill off fish anymore… mainly because I don’t have the time to clean their tank every other week. Hermit crabs, however, don’t need so much cleaning. Though they do need a high humidity and high temperature cage. About 80% and 80 degrees respectively.

I have three… and I hope to get a couple more. I’m looking into adoption of the little guys, istead of buying them from the pet store. But I’m not sure if there are any up for adoption around here in Utah.

I just thought I’d post this picture, I took this yesterday. This guy just got a new shell, and he’s the biggest one of the three.

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.

I have been too busy to set up my crab tank. Ugh. It still sits in the same state it did before I went on vacation. I got four rescue collies in from Houston and have been spending most of my time with them, and with my own dogs, and trying to manage our house at the same time.

So it waits for a while. I need to go read more about them and inspire myself!

Woo Hoo. My glass lid came for the tank, and my thermometer and humidy meter. So all I really need now is sand. Oh and to knit up some hemp climbing things for them… ugh, hammocks that is what they are called. LOL my brain is not too sharp today.

I plan on getting play sand this weekend. Then this coming week at work I’ll set it all up! I’m excited. I hope this lid fits. I measured and I think it will be okay, but not 100% certain. I guess we’ll see.

gauge

My under the tank heater came yesterday. Yay! So now I can start getting the temp right. Well, I need to get the sand in there, first. maybe today I can stop at Home Depot and get some play sand. I wonder if I’m supposed to boil all of it to sanitize it. Boiling a lot of sand is not my idea of fun…

Hopefully my temp and humidity guages will come soon, too, so I can really get those two things going, they are most critical!

Okay! I have a DIY humidifier made. Simple simple. I bought a whisper air pump for $12.99 at Petco (Sonny got to came with and he had fun). And some tubing, and an air stone. I hooked up the tubing to the pump and the airstone on the end, and plopped it into a Mountain Dew 2 Litre bottle from my husband (oh, filled with water not Dew).

So now it is bubbling away next to me. My tank is at work, so I’ll have to bring this to work on Tuesday. Actually, I need to seal up the tubing that goes in and comes out so the humid air only goes into the tank. I’ll do that later today.

I need to go buy some play sand, too. I think I’ll do that this weekend.