HCA: Hermit Crab Association

My state is conducting aerial spraying of a pyrethrin based pesticide to control mosquitoes in the area where I live. We have had an outbreak of Equine Encephalitis that has already killed some people in my area. The spraying was only announced yesterday and will take place tomorrow night, leaving me very little time to research or plan.

My question is what to do with my crabbies. I've got four in a 40 gallon tank that can't be moved without removing all the substrate first. I'm debating between wrapping up their tank in plastic wrap for the day or cramming them all in a tiny ten gallon terrarium and taking them to my parents' house for a few days. If I move them that still leaves the problem of whether I need to completely clean the terrarium before they come back home.

Does closing the windows and wrapping up the tank sound like a reasonable approach? How long would you keep the tank wrapped up?

This is a link to the news article with more info:
https://wwmt.com/news/local/state-count ... l-spraying

I would say wrapping it for about a day is a totally reasonable and less stressful approach, and so long as the house is shut up and no air intakes running etc it should be ok. Or as ok as that can ever be when forced upon us. IMO, someone else may know more about it that I don’t. Best of luck!


Dave the Wondercrab~Pat~Maggie~ Billy~Pop~Corn~Ten~Sam~MissTeri~Tim~Gene~ Barry~Mr S~Princess + 5 Es + Mr EnDoh =my crabby clan!

I think just wrapping the tank is good enough. It's not like they'll be spraying your house directly. I assume just the air gets sprayed. I looked it up and this is part of what I found. Of course I don't know what they are spraying in your area but I can assume it behaves the same.

What happens to Naled once it is sprayed?Naled starts to degrade (break down) immediately on surfaces, in water, and in sunlight.The chemical dichlorvos (DDVP) can be created when Naled degrades. It also breaks down quickly.In small quantities DDVP has not been shown to cause health problems in people.