Crabby7Crabber wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 9:13 pm
How exactly do you know if you have some sort of bacteria or not in your crabitat? I've never had trouble with it (at least, I don't think so...), and every once in a while I move the substrate around and feel the bottom of the tank to make sure water isn't pooling.
In a perfect world or crabitat you should churn the substrate every few months. That will help get oxygen back into the substrate and help mix wet and dry substrate for an even consistency. It is a lot easier when you have 2 or 3 crabs and they are all up. With more crabs it's nearly impossible because it is rare all crabs are up at the same time.
The only way to really detect a water build up is to run a butter knife or something similar down along the glass. Then wiggle the probe and pull it out. If you have any water it will collect in the bottom of the hole. From there you need to get the water out. that pretty much means a complete rebuild and digging up molters. That is also when you will discover if you have a bacterial bloom.
Like JoeHermits mentioned the bloom will smell funky. Rotten eggs, mothballs, musty basement, it all depends on the type of bacteria. The color is a give away too. It will have a gray color compared to the light tan and brown of normal substrate. We should really work on a Flood and Bacterial Bloom Caresheet. The problem is most people are in a hurry to get it fixed and don't take many pictures for documentation. I have a few pictures from last year when we had a bloom but not many.
Another way to help with spilled water around the pools is to surround them with dry sphagnum moss. The moss will help collect the water and also assist with humidity. I try to rotate moss from around my pools with dried moss in the moss pits. The only real downside is the crabs drag the moss into the pools and wherever else they want.