Cross country move soon, need some advice

[Nakkida]

Hi guys!

So I'm going to have to make a long distance move from Missouri to Washington at the end of October. This means I'll be taking my cat, my geckos, and my hermit crabs with me in the car. Obviously I can't move my hermit crab tank without removing most or all of the sand, it's simply too large and too heavy.

I've been reading up on the posts about moving and exploring options around the web to figure out what the best course of action will be and I'm seeing some mixed opinions. Some people are saying to put them in individual containers, some are saying to make a whole temporary setup from a bin, some say to ship them, and some say to leave them behind. (Not an option!)

The plan right now is to make a temporary crabitat out of a tote/bin. The substrate will be a couple inches of moss, there will be food, fresh & salt water, and hides for my 5 crabs. Do you guys think I should start that sooner than later to prevent them from trying to molt? There was one source saying to start moving them 3 months in advance into a tote like this and I'm just not sure that's safe, even though they'll only be in there a month at most. My crabs are currently digging a bit and are all overdue for their molts, I'm just so scared to move them too soon. But at the same time, it's going to be a nightmare and possibly a tragedy if they're all molting on moving day. The drive, at most, will be about 3 days and over 2000 miles.

I just want to get some advice from you guys before I start anything. Any thoughts? Past experiences?

Thank you

[Rawrgeous]

A tote setup would be completely safe. Ultratherm's are safe to use on them too. It would just be like a normal crabitat, just in a tote. There are people that use totes as their main tanks even.

[Nakkida]

Would you recommend using moss as a substrate or do you think I can use a few inches of sand/eco earth? If I use sand I am worried they will dig down, and that moving and driving with the tote will collapse their burrows.

[Rawrgeous]

Moss would work. So would sand. I'd just do enough to cover the bottom, like you said, you don't want anyone digging down those 3 days. That's if you do it day of.... If you do it ahead of time, just try to keep the tank rather stable. I think of you search the forum there are previous threads on moving with crabs.

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