HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Personally I clean mine once per month and it usallly takes me around an hour and a half. What time does it take you? How often do you clean it? Besides total clean outs how do you keep your tank clean? I'd really like to know

Idk how often other people do it but I've been doing a simple clean once a week. Take all the things out of the tank, find the poop spots and clean them up (and any hidden food), add a touch more sub if needed, put it all back in. I do a good boil of everything to disinfect it about once a month w/the shells, any hard dishes, toys, etc. Weekly clean takes about thirty minutes. When I do a clean and boil it can take an hour to two hours depending on how lazy I feel and slow I move haha. Haven't had a need to do a more thorough clean than that yet

I don't clean my tanks, ever. Healthy, beneficial bacteria grows in the tank and helps with waste and decomposition. Every time you clean the tank, you wipe out all that healthy bacteria and the crabs have to start all over.

Surface clean if you must, but leave the rest alone!

I'm with mool. The only cleaning I do is food debris. That's it!

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Curious, does the waste from the crabs just kinda decompose on its own as long as conditions are right? I always thought you had to clean it up or it just stays there and I know some people use pillbugs to help it. Mine always leave piles in certain spots I figured that'd be bad for them.

I have a good friend of mine who has turtles and cleans his tank once per year. I'll take you guys advice and spot clean- if you will- every week or so

Well it really depends on the clean. A usual smooth out I like to do every morning, so at least my tank can look half reasonable. But other then that, not much. At most a rescape every few months or so.

im pretty hands on. in the fact i move things around a few times a week (like sometimes 5 days sometimes 1 day out of the week. depends on my health and life) i will pick any food pulled onto the sub or dragged off. poop i pick up when its alot or if its in any shells. water changes are when they are empty since have some bacteria is good just like moot said. once a month/few weeks. i will totally redo everything and i take everything but the bowls out and most is cleaned and stored till another time with new stuff replacing it. or its all moved and 50/50 new to old things. some of which was previously cleaned and stored. cleaning is either boiling in FW or a SW soak. things i boil in FW i dip in SW after.

just me tho.

I'm the opposite of Just Jay. I am hands off. I change out the food bowls every other day and wash or rinse and refill the water bowls about once a week. I boil out the shells and rewet the shell shop moss about once every 2-3 months.

I've rewet the sub once and had to move around the décor to do so, but that's about it.

I'm with @aussieJJDude and @mool. I usually do a quick surface clean daily to pick up any fresh food that hasn't been eaten and to fill in any abysses the guys have created over night . Tank walls are wiped every few days to remove sand and water beads. Water change is done weekly (unless all of the crabs are down and the bowls are clean) and the 24/7 dry mix dish is also changed out weekly. Since I put together the 29g and moved everyone in two years ago this month, I haven't done a "deep clean" as there has been no flooding or anything to cause bacterial bloom. Hermit crab poop is biodegradable so I rarely pick it up from the surface and just remove the ones found when cleaning out the shell shop and moss pit every few weeks.

I have redecorate three times since I got my 20g, I don't really clean though. I leave the poo unless it's in shells. I do try to keep food out of the sub, tonight I have an issue with spilled honey I don't know how to get out of the sub. I will take my finger and push sand and condensation down to sub level when the crabs"climb the glass" and get sand all over it, but only so I can see, not really to clean. Now that everyone has molted, I added ee and mixed up the compacted sub for the first time. I did take a clean shirt sleeve and wipe smears of the glass. I don't ever take anything out to clean it(other than water bowls, then only with dechlor water) when I first get new items for the tank I boil them, then I assume they are good to go the rest of their life in the tank. I am afraid of bugs and (knock on wood) have been lucky not to have any yet since I don't clean the sub. Mainly I just change food every other day and water once a week.

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