Just got home with new group of PPs

jasonmom · Post by **jasonmom** » Wed Aug 05, 2015 1:26 pm

As I planned, just got back from the beach with new PPs. Got more than planned - 15 small. Amazing what my 9yo can talk me into. Two hours in & 3 have changed shells. There were no extra shells in tank I got them from.My problems thus far - tank is too humid (85-90%). I wet substrate before I left & guess I put in too much water. I've taken off the fiberglass lid & only have the mesh on now. Any guesses how long it will take to go down? (I have a 29gal with about 8 inches of sand/eco earth substrate)My temp is 73 which is close to temp in store I got them from.A few seam to really like the salt water pool - coming back to it multiple times.No one appears to have eaten yet - have out honey comb, cuttle bone, dried squid.My son is beside himself trying to figure out names - the one that changed into a really cool shell (looks like a miniature spiney conch) is Herman. The other two changed into green turbo shells.Thanks to everyone here for helping me get started & being understanding when I forget things.

jasonmom · Post by **jasonmom** » Wed Aug 05, 2015 2:15 pm

I took out my two corner caddies. One had very wet eco earth & the other wet moss. Can't think of anything else to do to try to bring down the humidity.Got one that seams to be trying to pull another out of his newly acquired green turbo. Stuck them on opposite ends of the tank & put 4 other green turbo shells around the one that was messing with the guy who had already changed. Hoping they will be OK. I want to be hands off and I need to go to bed - got to work early in morning.

jasonmom · Post by **jasonmom** » Thu Aug 06, 2015 11:47 am

So 24 hours in and I just changed out food. Gave them: fresh peach, krill. psyllium Husks, calendula Powder, worm casings, spirulina and fresh honey. Hoping they will eat (think a few have eaten honey). Counted 9 (didn't move the cave).Put corner caddies back in and think I got handle on humidity. One crab is buried in the moss pit corner caddie. Saw two in the EcoEarth corner caddie.Herman is still in fancy shell.

Laurie LeAnn · Post by **Laurie LeAnn** » Thu Aug 06, 2015 5:38 pm

Remember their guts are tiny like a pencil point if that?? Probably not going to tell very much if they are eating..put a hunk of skinless apple in and in the morning look for scrape marks. If they have been going back and forth to the salt pool they might be getting ready to go down here soon and molt. If they go down, they might do a run through, trial run.. do this come up & go back down several times before going down and staying down..

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Fri Aug 07, 2015 6:33 am

@jasonmom, congrats on the new crabs and yes I agree with Laurie hermitcrabs have very small stomachs and so eat very little very slowly so you really wont be able to tell if they are eating at this point all you can do is put the food in and hope that they are interested.I've had mine for so long that they are well up in size with most of them being in the base ball size range so when I put food in for them I know they are eating it because the dish will be emptied out in thirty minutes or so.Your little ones wont stay small for long as they get into a steady molt pattern they will be molting as often as every two to three weeks until they hit golf ball size at which point their molts will take longer and the period in between each molt cycle will last longer until they are only molting once or twice a year which is where I'm at with the majority of mine.This means that in six months a hermitcrab which was purchased around the size of a quarter will now be around the size of a chicken egg so the space you have for them now will quickly be gone, my advice is keep a look out for the dollar per gallon sales that Pet-co and sometimes Pet-smart does during the spring and fall of the year you can get a forty gallon for forty dollars which is a huge deal.

jasonmom · Post by **jasonmom** » Fri Aug 07, 2015 11:00 am

I had no idea that they would grow that fast. Maybe I just forgot .... I don't know. Better be looking for more shells. Bought some organic peanut butter and frozen shrimp (tail on). Plan to put that in tonight.They definitely like the honey. I could tell it was gone this morning. I put more in. Is it good to keep honey in for the first few weeks or so?

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Fri Aug 07, 2015 11:58 am

They'll start to develop a sweet tooth and only want the honey if you keep offering it regularly enough so alternating it out every other day with something else would be better than having it constantly available.Yeah when they are dime to quarter size they molt pretty frequently about once every two weeks, smaller specimens like the tinnies and micros which are under dime size molt once a week for several weeks because they are so small their molts happen very quickly so they tend to get more in than the larger crabs which take longer.When I had tinnies and micros I hardly ever saw them on the surface as they were always molting and only started seeing them regularly when they hit quarter size.

jasonmom · Post by **jasonmom** » Sat Aug 08, 2015 7:17 am

Thanks. That is exactly what I was wondering about - getting a sweet tooth and then not eating other stuff. I will take it out tonight when I put in other stuff.

jasonmom · Post by **jasonmom** » Sun Aug 09, 2015 6:57 am

I think a couple of my crabs are bigger than I thought. Two (one named Brutus, other no name yet) have changed into shells twice the size of their previous ones.On a good note, Brutus doesn't appear as aggressive today.