Good Morning from Atlanta GA! New Crab owner ;)

[CrabbyMommy2017]

Good Morning Everyone!

I just wanted to introduce myself and say that I'm happy to be on this board. I am an avid follower of the free section on craigslist. We have furnished much of our house using unwanted items posted on the free section there and I have found some really great stuff. This is how I found the new additions to our family in the form of little hermit crabs.

The crabs came to us in a 10 gallon tank from a free ad on craigslist. My two special needs toddlers find them to be amazing! After about a week in their normal tank, adjusting to our home, we moved them over to our empty 55-gallon tank. Before picking up our new free hermit crabs, I read anything I could online for hours, to make sure that I knew enough about them. I have tried to follow to the letter everything that I have read about their care and environment.

When making the switch over to the 55 gallon though, one of the crabs did not make it. I am assuming that he was just overstressed since i closely followed everything i had read. I did set up an isolation tank for him in hopes that he would make it. It has been a few weeks now in the new tank and the other four crabs seem to be doing fine. Since I have toddlers who are obsessed with cartoons we named the crabs after the StoryBots characters. That is respectively Beep, Bing, Bang, Boop and Bo. So I guess now it's just Beep, Bing, Bang and Boop.

I have had so much fun setting up this habitat for our crabs. We live on about one and a half acres of land with plenty of trees and flowers. This has provided an excellent source for tank decor and the crabs seem to love everything that we have put in there for them to climb on. This has also provided us with an excellent way of getting my children to come in from playing outside. Our 55-gallon crabitat is in the mud room beside the front door. Since adding the crabs to our family we now keep a small plastic sand pail right beside the front door, which we use to collect flowers as we're playing outside. The kids love doing this because as soon as we go inside they get to feed the grass, flowers, and leaves to our crabs. I know it may sound simple but it really helps my children feel like they are responsible when they get to toss the flowers into the top of the tank.

Aside from this the crabs also get a variety of commercial and homemade foods that came along with them when they were given to us, as well as any fresh fruits and vegetables that we are eating during our family meals.

We are a family of four with two special-needs toddlers ages 2 and 3 years old. My husband is the breadwinner and I am a stay-at-home mom. Right now we are preparing to homeschool. My children have therapy 3 to 4 days a week to help with their developmental delays and difficulties. I am now in the process of setting up a home-school classroom and curriculum. I have plans to start our homeschooling journey as soon as possible, but definitely by August of this year. I'm very excited about having the hermit crabs as our class pets. There have already been so many great experiences that my children have had with these new crabs and it's only just been a few weeks now.

The hermit crabs, so far, seem to be exactly what our family needed as far as low maintenance and educational pets. My children are learning about responsibility, different habitats, etc. and their speech and language has improved from talking about their new interest in the hermit crabs. Every time someone new comes over to our house the kids have to show them their new hermit crabs.

I just wanted to tell y'all a little bit about myself and say thank you for such a wonderful resource to help with the care of our new family additions.

Take Care,
CrabbyMommy2017

[GotButterflies]

Hello and Welcome to the HCA!

I absolutely love your signature!! (Cultivate Happiness and Give Thanks Daily) That is beautiful! I truly believe that everything happens for a reason in life.

Welcome to crabbing! It is a labor of love! I'm not sure if you have seen our care sheets under the Forum section, but you will find a lot of helpful stuff there.

Safe food list: http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 25&t=92557
Unsafe food list: http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 25&t=92556
Commercial food list: http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 25&t=92555
Food Pyramid: http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 25&t=92554

Have a great night

[CrabbyMommy2017]

Thank you for the warm welcome GotButterflies!

My signature (Cultivate Happiness, Give Thanks), is part of something new im trying out in our family. I want to have a yearly motto, mantra, theme. Almost like a new year's resolution, but easier and with more purpose than the typical stuff ive tried in the past. Something to benefit the whole family. I still have my goals, (for myself and my family) for 2017, but the yearly theme is something im trying to keep in mind.

We are really enjoying the crabs. My special needs toddlers have re-purposed their kitchen-helper stools (that used to stay in the kitchen at all times). Now i guess these have become the crab-watching stools. Lol. The kids wont let the stools move now from their new place on the floor beside the crab tank. The kids are still too young to help out with the crab care too much right now, but they are enjoying watching me take care of the tank and i let the kids do what small tasks they can.

Even my husband, (who swore that the crabs were My responsibility alone!), has been caught a time or two staring into the tank, observing the crabs, for up to ten minutes at a time! When i asked him what he thought about the crabs he replied, "they certainly dont ask too much of me," (we used to have gold fish in the 55 gal that the crabs now live in, which my husband would have to help me with often).

Thank you for the links. I will definitely look at those. I hope you have a great day!

Take Care,
CrabbyMommy2017

[GotButterflies]

That's awesome! Thank you! I hope that you and your family have a great day as well!

[Hermie225]

Im a little late on this but, welcome to HCA CrabbyMommy2017!