HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Happy New Year everyone,
Monster my 5yr old captive bred male has been having a field day with all the girls in my 4ft tank. He spent over 12 hours with one captured in his legs a couple of nights ago. Plus another one has spawned in the salt pool. I have 1022 (might be 100 less) zoea in my raising jars there were shed skins in this morning so we are on day 2 of a 12 day in water cycle for Aussies. After my last couple of drastic losses I have gone back to using PRIME rather than FRACTION for water treatment in the jars. At this stage I can see no orange heads or colouring of any sort which is what I first noticed in the last lots on about day 2/3 so I will be checking closely tomorrow.

My smallest female (who was captured by Monster on New Years Eve) spent 24hours hanging from a very small branch right up high while Monster had the female in his control 2 nights ago. Monster was still able to fend off poor old Choco (his captive bred brother) who is smaller. Choco was seriously trying to get a look in with the female Monster had captured.
I moved the small female into the juvenile tank with the babies who are 9 months old now. She will be safe there. I will need to keep a watch though as the pool in there is not at all suitable for spawning in even though is it plenty good enough for the juveniles.

More to come

Wow Your tank is buusy!

It cracks me up on how much of a Casanova... well, a bit by force, but he seriously needs time out at this point .

The journey summary. I put them into 3 jars and used jar 3 as an experimental jar. Jar 1 was the first collection from the tat pool. It had a heap in it initially. Then I did a second collection and they went into jar 2. The next day I collected the dregs I'd missed and they went into jar 3. Then I spent time evening them out and had roughly 300 in each jar. Jar 3 I added marine snow and nannochloropsis. I wasn't totally sure it wasn't the marine snow that caused the issues with my previous few failed attempt. Later that day I found more in the tat pool. I am now thinking that there were way more than what I had left so think it was the initial deposit of a spawning that happened the next day By the time I had these into the jars I had 1022 mega and really couldn't take more. That's why I was frustrated when I discovered on day 4 another heap of zoea in the tat pool.

To summarise this I had a spawning on 4th January and a second on 7th January. About half of the second spawning are still in the tat pool to see how they go coz I can't fit them in the jars.

On day 5 I was expecting sheds in jar 3 as this had some who were on day 3 which meant they should be shedding from zoea 1 to 2. BUT I found mega in there. This is the jar that had been getting the marine snow and nannochloropsis. So obviously it has given them energy to moult to mega a day earlier. At 1800 on 9th (day5) I took the mega out and put them in a wider shallower jar and fed them a small piece of raw prawn. Left it about 2 hours. They had an airstone but water movement wasn't wonderful. The mega certainly ate the prawn. Sadly by about 2200 most of these had died. Lack of circulation I suspect.
At midnight on day 5 (9th Jan) I did a water change and discovered I had mega in both the other jars. This is right on schedule and I was really happy to see this. I added some beta grains which sink and the mega can grab them and eat.

Today is 10th and is day 6 of this journey. I did a total water change in Jars 1&2 and put all the mega (about 270) into jar one and the zoea (I didn't count) into jar 2. The experimental jar 3 has remained as is... I turned the flow down slightly in mega jar and fed some beta food. Put some food into jar 2 for those that go to mega today but didn't turn the flow down as there are still heaps of zoea II. Jar 3 got snow and beta food. All jars got nannochloropsis.

That's a quick catch up on the attempt so far. I'm still convinced that I have more gravid females. SO am almost finished building a filtered kriesel. The tank I'm using is 55L (14.5US Gallons) less about 10 for not filling to the top and the space taken by the sloped sides and the central chamber.

Tuesday morning the ammonia levels were really high. Nitrate and Nitrite were fine. I had done a big feed of rotifers last night at midnight so that may well have been the cause.
Did a 100% water change in jars 1 and 2. Have now got 77 mega in jar 1 and 56 in jar 2. Jar 3 (the experiment jar) got a 75% change and I didn't do a head count. There are still zoea in there as they are from the second spawning. All survivors are looking good though. I've put shells in all jars and they have been in there for a few days in jar 1. Mega are definately interested.

The transition tank is set up and sitting at 30C and 85% humidity at the moment. It has a few more days before it will be needed so that should be good. Sub is a little dry for babies at the moment but I'll see how it is when needed.

My kriesel build is continuing steadily. I've really only got to secure the screen mesh at the top and one side and then assemble the water delivery and decide how many holes to drill in the spray bar.

This is my current set up. 350 in each jar is really more than it should have as jars are only 2L each.


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That is so exciting! Congratulations.

I have mega in shells at midnight on Day 9.


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awesome!

What a journey! Thanks for continuing to share this fascinating process; what you are learning and sharing is so important.

Amazing!

Day 11 at 0900hrs I transferred 4 mega in shells to the transition tat pool. I included a blood worm for energy


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Oh nice! I'm sure all their siblings are soon going to follow!

Added another 5 last night.

This one headed straight for the top ( where the pipette is) but didn’t end up making the break for land.




They are devouring blood worms like they are the best thing they have ever eaten. ( maybe they are )


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