HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Will churning sub kill my isopod population. I have drawfs and I know they don't normally bury down very far. However I need to churn the sub it's dryer on top and looks like it might be too wet at the bottom. I believe all my crabs are top side. But will this kill my isopods or will they be fine?

Sent from my SM-J700T1 using Tapatalk

I've been puzzling the same thing... I assume survival depends on how deep a given individual ends up (?).

I settled on using potato traps for two days before a planned churn, catching and temporarily removing as many as I can, to be safe. But I don't really know... and if everyone is up, you might not want to wait. :dunno:

I went ahead and did it anyway. What I did was I know a whole lot live right under the food bowl so I grabbed a large handful of the substrate and moved it to a different container. That saved a bunch. I did this twice. I set that container to the side and removed all crabs and decorations. Then I churned up the sub. I replaced everything and dumped the container with the isopods in it back in the tank. Then I put the crabs back in. I will check in a couple days to see how bad the population dropped. I'm expecting most of the deaths to be babies.

Sent from my SM-J700T1 using Tapatalk

Since its been churned, I imagine that the majority should survive since the substrate has not compressed yet - aka complete lack of airflow. You may have some deaths, but from my experiences most should make it that ypu will barely see a population drop - and since you have dwarfs, I'd imagine that most would make it unlike larger species available.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

In the future, you could always put a piece of bark in before you churn the sub and they will flock to that

Mine seem to have a few favorite spots - coco wall, cholla , cork rounds and under our big rock and oyster shells. I recently took everything out of the tank, turned the sub and replaced everything and I am still seeing plenty of isopods so not much harm done!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The isopods appear to be fine. There is at least 25 adults under the food bowl alone.

Sent from my SM-J700T1 using Tapatalk