HCA: Hermit Crab Association

My wife found the Sue Fox hermit crab book at the library. I was extremely impressed. It blows away the other three garbage hermit crab books I own. This lady actually knows what she's talking about!It seems to have been written in the 70s, but this version was updated in 2000. What excited me the most was that she was saying the exact same things I've been preaching on the boards.First, she recommends not bathing crabs at all and always having a dish of both waters so they can maintain their shell water and do osmoregulation.Second, she emphasizes that high-humidity is simply insufficient unless you have high-temperature to go with it, and recommends 75-85oF (90 and 65 as the danger zones) and says you've shouldn't keep crabs unless you can provide them with that proper temperature. And that crabs can deal with lower humidity (60's) as long as they have heat. These are all observations I've noted in the past.And she also mentions the need for extremely deep substrate (like 7-10 inches if you have jumbos) and the need to be able to bury in it. And having solid lids, and everything.And she also echos that you should never dig up buried crabs, especially if they're molting.Actually only half the book actually goes into care. The rest is a really interesting read into the crab's taxonomy, biology, natural behavoirs and environments, etc.Anyway, I was impressed. It's like someone made a whole book based on my care sheet. Except the book came first heh.Actually I think a couple members of this board wrote their own crab care book. I haven't had the chance to read it yet. I bet that one is quite good too.

I think I am going to look to see if my library carries that book, it sounds interesting, and the kids are due for a trip to the library anyway! You mention the solid lid in your post, but you are still allowing for air ventilation right? I know you are extremely knowlegable about hermies, so I am in no way questioning your practices, only wanting to clarify, so I am sure I am doing the right thing with my tank, since I have a solid plexiglass top for my tank, that is cut in half to allow me to slide it (kind of like a sliding glass door) and allow for appropriate ventilation to maintain proper temp and humidity. Thanks for the info on temp and humidity. I am sure it will set a lot of folks at ease who are worrying about the high temps in their tanks due to the summer temps outside.

Yep, i was emphasizing the solid lid as opposed to mesh or open-top lids. And she does mention leaving some of it open. She recommended having a screen lid, and then keeping a solid lid over the screen. That way even for the open part, there's still a screen to prevent crabs from escaping. And she did mention about using plastic wrap over critter keeper tops.The only thing she didn't get into in her book is ventilation, which is something I find extremely important. Unfortunately it's not always a cheap task, and TropicAir pretty much has the market cornered. I feel there should be some kind of air influx into the tank, either from a TropicAir humidifier, or some airstone or even just plain hoses connected to an air pump, or a fan attached to one side of the lid (true terrariums actually have side-mounts for fans like computer cases).She also mentioned that it's not necessary to have large fuly-bathable resevoirs. Crabs just need an inch to wade into, and they're fully capable of filling their shell water just by dipping their claws in the water (something I'd read in the greenaway article too. The water flows up the crabs hairy legs via capillary action, and they pass it through their gills to wet them, and then it goes back into their shell water). The main argument is that crabs spend significantly more time buriend in the substrate than sitting in the water, so the crabarium realestate is better used for substrate than extremely large basins.I've personally been heading down the path have having large pools of water that are cycled and aerated to maintain a well balanced ecosystem. But that's pretty expensive, and I'm not close to fully there yet.My problems kind of build upon themselves. If I just had small pools, I could replace the water regularly and not worry. But I have waterfalls, and it's really a pain to clean them and empty the water. And the crabs keep dumping dirt in them which clogs the pumps. So my only solution is to filter the water and cycle it.

quote:true terrariums actually have side-mounts for fans like computer cases Terrariums create an airflow by having two ventilation openings that are diagonally opposed to each other, like at the open and at the front, under the sliding doors, or on both sides, one higher than the other. It's possible to place a PC fan at one of those openings and I ue this method to cool my terrariums down, but it's a humidity killer if it's done for more than 5-10 minutes every hour.

Sorry Aviate! I've been meaning to get a copy but haven't gotten around to it yet. I have to avoid book stores these days because my wife uses up all my paycheck on books.I didn't scour the book too closely to nitpick all the errors yet. I was just impressed that it was so much better than the other books I have. Of course I think the books i already have were written in the 70's, so it's probably no doubbt.One big difference between this one and the other one I have is that the other one mentions the method of basically saturating the lower substrate with water, so that you could actually shift away a corner and have a beach down to a pool. I'd posted about this before. In some aspects it seems like a good idea, as it emulates a real beach better. But I don't think it would work well in a small tank unless the water was filtered like in an amphibian/frog tank.I'd be interested in seeing your list of errors from the Sue Fox book. I hope I didn't miss anything too obvious my first read through it.

Another reason a tank would have to be huge in order to successfully create a beach like environment is that the sand eventually becomes much too wet and heavy and causes problems for molters.