HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Love all the details!!!


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This is amazing and also hilariously narrated Best thread I've read in a while! Keep up the good work!


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Poor Artemis has been so exhausted from all her babymaking I've hardly seen her. Today she was hanging out up high on the mopani wood so I handed her a piece of popcorn as thanks for all her hard work. She took a few bites then hugged it close, turned away, and went to sleep. Teddy bear popcorn.


I finished the final water change for the day at 6:30, and I'm starting to get a system down. Each jar has a number and I keep track of which I do as I do it, and if I do anything different in one that I want to remember. One thing I'm a little concerned about is salinity. I don't have a way to measure it, currently, and though I'm not worried about the IO I'm using, I am worried about increased salinity over time from the warmer water temps (evaporation) and the spray from the air stones which is already creating considerable salt buildup on the air tubing and a lid I just added today because I realized the spray was hitting the heat lamp bulb (can you say YIKES??). A burst bulb directly over the open jars of zoea? Whew, nightmare averted.

Awwww sweet Artemis!!


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Day Four. Everything looks really good this morning. Only one jar needed a 7am 30% water change (one that has a lot of zoea). The others look clean and the zoea are lively. I gave them a sprinkle of brine shrimp eggs, but they seem really hungry so I think I'll add one ground up shrimp pellet, too. The pellet I put in at bedtime last night appears to have been consumed. I'll watch the jars, but I'm thinking I can wait until 11 am to do a partial change in the other jars. So yesterday's schedule will be my model for today unless something changes that requires me to adjust. Still feeling optimistic...

https://www.amazon.com/marine-Glass-sal ... +saltwater

I have the glass hydrometer listed here.

Keep on keeping on!!!! You are doing great!!!!!!!!

Edit: In my mini msw tank I add fw when salt is high to balance it out....
Edit 2: Maybe @Renroc can give you advice?

Yeah. I keep meaning to ask renroc since she did the jar thing, too. Just so much to keep up with. I gave them a little sprinkle of chlorella, too, and about an hour later the bodies of the ones who had eaten it turned green!
But it's made the water especially messy so I think I'll only do that as an occasional treat. I haven't actually seen the brine shrimp hatching, but I see the crabs eating the eggs. Maybe the eggs are old? Or maybe the crabs are just eating them all.

This is a shot of one checking me out and one hugging a brine shrimp egg.

Here's a link to a video that shows them eating down at the bottom of one jar earlier today (day four). The jar looks really filthy, but I promise it isn't. Some of that is food, but mostly it's just because the macro lens gets in so close that even the tiniest particles look like giant dust bunnies.

https://youtu.be/Jb_Qikc6z18

GotButterflies wrote:https://www.amazon.com/marine-Glass-sal ... +saltwater

I have the glass hydrometer listed here.)

Thank you for the link! I like the looks of that one. Simple and narrow. The ones I found locally all had a wide collection port that wouldn't even fit in the jars so it didn't make sense to buy one of them. But I'm thinking I should try to find one just to get a better sense of salinity. I've been adding occasional drops of freshwater from the medicine dropper, but that's just me guessing based on evaporation and splash. (I have a fill line marked, but that's certainly not exact.)

yw! I like it!

Love the videos and pictures that you posted!

If you can ever make your way to Ottawa, I will give you my kreistel tank. I also have a salt-o-meter you can have with it.

http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... 2&t=115152

I built it when I was caring fro my Straw babies but it wasn't completed in time and now it'll never be used. I could maybe ship it to NF if you want to pay for shipping.

EDIT:

I just found the holy grail, if you need it, I happen to have the largest hermit crab baby shell collection in north america. In case you need it;

Oh Kuza...that would be wonderful for mlakers!!!!

kuza wrote:If you can ever make your way to Ottawa, I will give you my kreistel tank. I also have a salt-o-meter you can have with it.

http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... 2&t=115152

I just found the holy grail, if you need it, I happen to have the largest hermit crab baby shell collection in north america. In case you need it;

Oh my goodness!!! Those shells!!!!!!

I have about 100 baby shells at this point. 50 from wolfnipplechips that are shaped like turbos, and 50 that I picked out of a bag of craft shells from Michael's. I can't imagine I'll need more than that, although I still have thousands of zoea alive (and another female ready to drop eggs any day now--yikes), but I'm guessing a die-off will be coming if anyone else's results are an indication of what I have in store. Hate to be too optimistic, but I also hate to be unprepared....

Gosh, that all sounds so amazing, though. What a wonderfully generous offer! I'm so overwhelmed by baby zoea duties at the moment, but I would love to see how this batch goes and then see what I can do with future eggs that may be gifted to me.

Thank you!!

yup just PM me if you need some. I have all sizes from 1mm up

kuza wrote:yup just PM me if you need some. I have all sizes from 1mm up

Thank you, kuza!! I just spent an hour and a half reading (rereading) through your entire straw breeding thread. Man, it's just SO much work, isn't it? I'm tired just reading all your efforts...and more scared now, too!

It's so easy to be optimistic in that first week. I'm going to go up and check on them again right now!