92g Crabazonian Jungle Crabarium! (Pics)

[JediMasterThrash]

Here's page full gallery of 40 pics of the latest incarnation of my 92g crabarium:http://home.comcast.net/~JediM...rabazonian%20Jungle/A couple samples: I actually learned a bunch of new lessons this iteration, so please see my “Lessons Learned During A Deep Clean 6” post. This post will just explain the features of Crabarium VI.I used 3 bags of playsand (150lbs). I also decided to try half-n-half with coco-fiber. I used 3 bricks of coco-fiber, and placed them in the front of the tank, so that you get an even black front. I put 1 inch of sand under the coco-fiber because sand is a better insulator for the bottom of the tank. And then the whole back 3/4 of the tank is sand.I made the mistake of using the directions on the coco-fiber box. It had been a while since I last used it. It says it only takes 20minutes of soaking in water. Yeah right. I should have left it for about 4 hours. Even 1 hour wasn’t enough. I ended up breaking it in slices by hand to get more surface area to soften. I probably could have used 5 bricks to actually fill up 1/2 of the tank. 3 bricks only covered about 1/4.I was tired of crabs digging under the water pools, causing them to lean to a side or corner. Then you can’t fill them all the way anymore, and end up overfilling and it pours over the side. So this time I got cheap matching mugs from the GoodWill for 49c each and placed them upside-down under the pool corners to act as legs. So the crabs are still free to dig under the pools, but they won’t be affecting their levelness anymore. It will also make it easier for taking the pools out to clean them, since I don’t have to re-level the sand. They’ll just set right on top of the mugs.I also again wanted to have the edge of the water pool above the substrate again, so that substrate doesn’t get piled into them. But the smaller crabs have trouble climbing up into the pools. And then I need lots of sponges so they can get back out. Last time I put cholla alongside the pools to climb into them, but they devoured one of my cholla, so I didn’t want to lose any more. Also, I’d like to get rid of the sponges, because cleaning them is just one extra thing to do each week, and they sponges tend to get ****ed up against the filter in-flow, which blocks its ability to filter junk from the water. The sponges aren’t necessary for humidity in my tank.So, I created the special climbing walls for the water pools you see in the pictures. I took some green plastic mesh that I found in the clearance section of Jo-Ann, and cut it to size, and attached some sections by sowing them together with fishing-line. It works great, and looks cool. Now the little crabs can climb in and out without problem. To keep the mesh down in the pools, I added some river stones to the bottom. It actually makes it look cool.I also again have the fountain/waterfall, which I’ve modified with a larger basin, and two Duetto 50 3-stage filters.My crabariums seem to have been getting sparser and sparser. My last one had a lot of open floor space. I was going down that route because I wanted more walking room for jumbos, and I wanted to make sure the crabs had access to substrate to dig into. However, I’ve come to the realization that crabs can climb and dig they’re way around obstacles pretty easy, so I shouldn’t be worried about making sure there’s girth for every crab. Also, the crabs will dig under things to get access to substrate, and actually they prefer burying this way anyway. Also, my crabs seemed to be buried or hiding too much my last iteration. I theorized that it was because they didn’t have enough surface hiding places. So this time I made it a bit more crowded on the substrate level. It looks nice, and also the crabs have many more places to hide on the surface, so they’ll be more likely to stay on the surface, and feel more secure so they’ll come out more often. So far, it seems to be true, as I can see lots of crabs out and about now compared with before.In a previous thread, I’d thought that having beds of moss might help strawberries (or other crabs that have difficulty molting) burying or hide to molt. So I bought a big bag of real moss (not to be confused with shredded pine wood they call Spanish moss or decorative moss), and spread it around the two back sides of the tank. It smells kinda funky, but it puffs up nice, giving a good 2 inches of moss bedding to play/hide in.I did the same thing for the second level as last time, using cubes to create a level second floor. This time, I didn’t run it all the way across though; I split it into two sections against the back walls, and placed one wicker basket on each. This gave me room to place the bonsai between them, letting me economize the floor-space better. I used the large round dish basked from before, plus a cool officy basket with 5 compartments for crabs to crawl into and hide. Also, this time, I made sure there were cholla-ladders going up to the second levels from the main floor, to make sure the crabs had easy access. Hopefully this will improve second-level usage.With only one bowl-basket for empty shells, I reduced the number of shells I had out a little bit. But I think it’s still plenty. I still have about 3-6 of each size, and I have them split into about 8-10 size categories.I also decided that there wasn’t quite enough fawna in my previous iteration, so I added two more plastic plants (walfart 3$) to what I had from before. Now it looks really jungly! I really like the spider plants hanging their stuff from the top. I also did the vine around the back waterfall like I had in my 2nd iteration, and the crabs enjoy climbing on it.I have three light fixtures. Two with two 25-watt night-glo bulbs each, for a total of 100 watts, and a 15watt Repti-Glo 5.0. I’ve decided that I want more variation in temperature and humidity during the day, so I’ve placed one of the night-glo fixtures on the same day/night timer as the repti-glo. So they’ll get 65watts of additional heat during the day, which should evaporate more water. And then let it get a bit cooler at night.Oh, and my original night-glos from Nov. 2003 are still on! 26,000 hours of continuous use! They were only rated for like 2000.Finally, I still have the two TropicAire humidifiers providing fresh humid air inflow to the tank. I usually have the lid propped open about 3 inches to keep the humidity from going too high, and to provide adequate air-flow to keep the air fresh.I now have 52 crabs in the tank (plus two more in ISO that were molting during my deep-clean), thanks to two summer adoptions and a couple of trips to the pet stores. I’ve got some pictures of them enjoying their new home.