HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Soooo. Definitely thought it was too late in the year and may have used the tank I was holding aside for a kriesel build for a second aquarium a couple months back. But Darnell the Crab Man (named before we discovered she was she but we both like the name so it stuck) is carrying eggs. Tons it looks like. So many eyeballs. Just now spotted them.

I'd like to try and give this a go. Any more experienced folks have any guess how far along she is/how long I have to set up? I'm rushing out the door right now for a doctor appointment but I think I might be hitting up Petco on the way home.

Photos!!!

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Read a bunch and video watched to refresh my memory yesterday. Looks to me like she's really close to spawning time. Also she spent all morning around the saltwater pool. I went ahead and got a birthing setup ready for her inside the main rank but of course she vanished by the time I had it ready.

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Took me several attempts but I finally caught Darnell and got her isolated in the birthing chamber yesterday evening. And I guess it was just in time because this morning I woke up to zoeae!!!! Took a bit of video while I had the bubbler off to make sure I wasn't just looking at tiny aeration bubbles. There's so many!

Excuse my heavy breathing, I just woke up and was excited and forgot to edit sound out.
https://youtube.com/shorts/bc5Bp3ghHkU? ... 6iCSqfvEHc

Didn't make it into Petco yet for supplies so now I'm anxiously waiting for their opening at 10 so I can get a makeshift kriesel going. Fortunately I do have some fresh hatched brine shrimp on hand so at least I can give them a little something to eat.

Very cool. Keep us posted!

Thanks!

Yesterday was busy getting it all set up but everything seems to be going surprisingly smoothly. The local Petco was a bit wiped so I have some bits coming from Amazon to finalize stuff like aerating the clean water supply while it waits for water change time. But there was enough to make sure they're doing well. I ended up just trying to dump about half of the pool she spawned in into each chamber. The second chamber definitely got a lot more of them. We'll see what kind of difference that makes. I also ended up with some debris in there floating around but that mostly seems to have settled this morning.

Video from right after I put them in. I remembered the audio this time.
https://youtu.be/rx6Vd2MchA8

They've been fed small amounts (between 2 and 10 drops) of fresh hatched baby brine shrimp four times now. I have no idea if I'm feeding enough or not. They pretty much vanish into the swirl of zoeae immediately. But the zoeae look active and plentiful still this morning. I did a 50% water change in both this morning and I could swear they seemed happier and more active afterwards. Rubber banded a piece of weed barrier fabric to some airline to syphon and didn't seem to suck any of the zoeae into the waste water jar. It also didn't pull out much of the debris so we'll see how that works out. I'm aiming for doing the 50% water changes twice a day right now but will adjust as needed.

It's easier for me to type up on the computer but I'll switch over to Tapatalk for a photo for those YouTube averse.

Well ain't that interesting. Didn't realize the videos embedded on the app. Anyway here goes a photo of the setup. Also one I took of the smallest shells I have for someone who offered help finding more. Pretty sure I need to find some much smaller still but I've got some time to sort that out.

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So things seem to be going really well here. The water was looking a bit murkier after the evening water change and I'm thinking we had the first shed. I do have some extra time today so I think I may go ahead and remove the barrier cloth for this evenings water change and than pipette anyone who gets sucked into the waste jar back into the kreisel. But they still seem very active and numerous in there to me. I feel like they are bigger to the naked eye as well. Here's video from last night after the water change.

https://youtu.be/I1AGSRfMuvo

Like I said, a bit murky. But the zoeae were looking fine this morning when I did their standard water change. Also I had another crab surprise me with eggs about an hour ago. This time one (Troll) I didn't know was female. It looks like I have a bit more time than with Darnell here to me though.

https://youtu.be/opt-CI5CVKA

And I had just got the main tank resituated and was feeling like I was getting into a groove with the zoeae. These ladies are scandalous.

Photos are way more difficult to catch. I've only managed to get two decent ones over the last few days.

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Good luck! I hope you are able to do it!