Moving crabs to bigger tank

[Moe2076]

As the completion of my aquarium stand for my 75 gallon gets closer my thoughts are starting to drift towards setting up the new tank.

Currently I have 7 crabs in a 40 gallon breeder. I have seem most of them out in the past week or 2 on the wyze. 2 of the 3 I haven't seen in weeks whom I suspect molted are back up. The largest may take another bit of time still.

How should I go about moving them over to the 75 once it is set up? I might could catch a few of them out earlier in the evening and grab them. I did see 2 of the freshly molted out and with my own eyes just a little bit ago.

Do I just try and wait them out and maybe try and stay up late or set an alarm to see who I can catch when they are up? Maybe I need to make a lot of surface hiding spots with coconut huts and moss. They all stayed topside for a long while till recently. Then 3 or 4 went down to molt and now it seems like there is a good network of at least 3 tunnels they are going into every morning vs hiding topside.

I hate to go digging, at the very least it will stress them out.

I've got a good piece of time off coming so maybe I need to just stay up late and grab them when they come out. I can try to see if I can lure them all out with some good meaty protein.

What have you all done? Other Ideas?

[RiNiKy506]

It’s not good to dig unless there’s an emergency situation, I would wait and grab them as you see them. If your positive that none are molting and you want to move them all over at once, I don’t think it would hurt them to dig but to be on the safe side, I’d grab them as you see them. Hopefully you’ll be able to catch them all out and have it easy-peasy.

[DevilNDisguise]

Patience is definitely key. I got lucky and was able to move all of mine over to their 75g within a little over a week.

I'd say the best thing to do is just keep an eye out for them, and whatever you see them up and roaming, snag them and make the switch.