HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I got my crabitat set up yesterday and am dealing with Temp issues. I keep my house 61°-65° in the winter and it's making it hard to keep my 10 gallon tank temp up. I have a fish tank top and tape over the feeding holes except a small hole in the back for air. I have an 8 watt uth(rated for 10-20 gallon) on the side and a 16 watt(30-40 gallon) on the back. All above substrate level. Right now the tank is 69° and 93° humidity. I lost a crab last night. I'm not sure if it was because it got too cold, though because one of them didn't come out of the shell until a few hours after getting them.

Should I return the 16watt and get a bigger one? Switch to heat bulbs?

Oh and Merry Christmas for those that celebrate it

Ostranderkayla93 wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 25, 2019 8:55 am

I got my crabitat set up yesterday and am dealing with Temp issues. I keep my house 61°-65° in the winter and it's making it hard to keep my 10 gallon tank temp up. I have a fish tank top and tape over the feeding holes except a small hole in the back for air. I have an 8 watt uth(rated for 10-20 gallon) on the side and a 16 watt(30-40 gallon) on the back. All above substrate level. Right now the tank is 69° and 93° humidity. I lost a crab last night. I'm not sure if it was because it got too cold, though because one of them didn't come out of the shell until a few hours after getting them.

Should I return the 16watt and get a bigger one? Switch to heat bulbs?

Have you looked on Reptiles Basics or Beanfarm? They're online stores with Ultratherm UTH's. They're better working and are save to insulate!

You can insulate the tank around the heaters. Wrap tinfoil, shiny side out, around cardboard and tape to sides of tank. Don't cover the heaters. You can also cover the tank with a blanket. It's ok if you cover the airholes. They don't need those. They get enough air exchange when you feed them.

I keep my room between 50 and 60 all winter long. I was able to keep the 10 gallon at 80 to 85 with one 11x11 Flukers UTH. On the back over the UTH and on the top, I used two pieces of cardboard covered with two layers of aluminium foil, thin fabric over top to disguise it all, and plastic over that on just the lid to hold in moisture.

As others have commented, I have found with all tanks small (10 and 20 ) and big (40 and 75) covering them as completely as possible will significantly raise the heat and humidity level and help to hold it stable.

With my 40 I had it covered with pieces of glass I had cut. I broke one and had to replace it with 2 more. I had trimmed the original pieces a little short to leave small spaces to let air in. After I broke the glass I cut the replacements almost exactly to size and I saw my heat and humidity rise about 10 % and 10 degrees when it was more fully covered.

I just set up a 75 last night, I'm not done. I have a long UTH on the back and 1 on 1 side. It has 4 or 5 inches of sub in it, I put a thermometer in and covered it completely with 2 pieces of plexiglass and it was reading 80 % humidity and 75 degrees early am this morning and is at 90% 77.5 at the front of the tank now.

I swapped out the heater for a bigger one and did the foil on the top. The temp is now 76° and rising. Thank you for your tips!