HCA: Hermit Crab Association

One of my big ones FINALLY resurfaced from molting, and I could see nobody on the bottom of the tank. I said to my husband yesterday that it looked like this weekend would be an excellent time to change out a bunch of the substrate (the crabs had a pool party recently and wicked out all of the salt water).

I checked the bottom of the tank today, and there are like 5 crabs down there, now! What the heck... UGH. These crabs...I tell ya... :roll:

I'm going to go for it this weekend anyway. Don't really have a choice. Hopefully they are just digging for fun, and if not, I can probably catch them before they start shedding their exo. Will be nice to get a head count on everybody.

I was surprised that I only had five underground when I panicked and went digging on Saturday. I hadn't been seeing any crabs lately and thought they were all molting. Nope... had 20 of them piled in the bottom of the moss pit!

Hope everything goes well with the clean, and hope everyone is still there.

good luck cleaning! I wish my crabs had crazy pool parties, lawl! I haven't even had a swimmer yet, I hope to someday see that in real life because it looks super cute in pictures.

Thanks! I hope the playsand will be as pretty and white as everybody else's. Seems like the playsand up here is all dark every time I buy it.

the playsand i buy is dark too! grrr.. i tried two different brands from different stores and have yet to get the pretty white sand.

No pretty white sand. I checked all the brands. Just went with quickrete (sp?) like usual. Things are going poorly with the deep clean. I found two freshly molted crabs. And I mean FRESH. Both are E's, and are in the ISO tank. I had one E streak, but got him re-shelled.

I found two "death shells" meaning that I know there used to be crabs in them. Both were crabs that I brought home and never saw again, so I am thinking it's not anything I did...PPS type of thing.

I'm waiting on some expanding eco earth right now to add to the play sand. I'd like it to be a uniform 10 inches of substrate.

My husband is obsessed with waterfalls right now, so we took advantage of petco's $1/gallon sale and he got a 40 gallon tank to make a waterfall in. SO JEALOUS. I want to put crabs in it. It seems such a waste just to have a waterfall in it with no purpose!!

Ok, back to the deep clean. I'm sneezing up a storm right now. Thanks, allergies!!

Hope the E's are ok.

As for "death shells," I had a crab get eaten while under- was not fun digging up just his shell...

A waterfall for the crabs would be so cool. *-*

And bleh. Gotta love allergies, huh?

Oh my goodness! Finally done!!! That took literally all freaking day...

The tank looks really nice, though! I'll get a photo tomorrow, but I know it won't do it justice. There are just so many features you can't see by just looking at a photo. I maximized all the air space. Suction cups and zip ties are great inventions.

I'm betting it's gorgeous, and can't wait for pictures! So sorry about the two you lost.

Sounds like your hubby must have a plan if he's building a waterfall in a 40G..... Frogs perhaps? Salamanders? I'm sure you'll come home one day and find something cool sitting in it!

I'm excited to see the pictures! I've seen some of yours before, you really know how to make a crabitat!!

Sorry about your two losses PPS sucks! Good luck with the two molters you found

Can't wait to see the tank!

Dun da-na-na!! Here it is.
The front view:

On the right side (humidity too high, temp too low, but it's almost perfect now. Today, humidity is still around 90 on that side of the tank.)

On the left behind the bushes:


Like I said, the photos really don't do it justice. Might make a video sometime.

The tank features:
2 two liter aerated pools,
7-9 inches of substrate (had to slope it a little)
2 cholla bridges spanning a good chunk of the tank to maximize climbing in the air space
1 cholla perch suctioned to the side of the tank
4 mushroom ledges
2 moss pits
2 bushes
4 vines
1 Xl half-log hidey
2 amazing pieces of driftwood found by me
150 watt heat lamp
1 pair of temp/humidity gauges (soon to be two...my crabs decided to throw a pair into the water to be funny)

The molters are doing well. Both are eating their exos. I have high hopes for them.

wodesorel wrote:I'm betting it's gorgeous, and can't wait for pictures! So sorry about the two you lost.

Sounds like your hubby must have a plan if he's building a waterfall in a 40G..... Frogs perhaps? Salamanders? I'm sure you'll come home one day and find something cool sitting in it!

I think he just wants to build a waterfall, plain and simple!! He doesn't know anything about animals, so I know he wouldn't build a habitat specifically for anything. He knows I want none other than a newfie dog. Plus, we have nowhere to put the tank (it was on the couch, now it's in the middle of the living room) in this apartment. Now he's saying that it's to spur him on to get a house. I LOVE that idea!! he just told me he ordered a pump that can pump water up 30-something inches. :roll: This is going to be fun to watch. hehehe

Also put up a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrJ-TWKqqoE

It has music (classical-ish), so if you don't like that, be sure to mute your speakers.

Wow, it really does look amazing! Great job. The hermies look so happy and at home in the video.

You might have already mentioned this, but what size is your crabitat?