HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello everyone!! I have heard about air stones (I think that is what they are called) and I was looking into getting one. I was wondering if my water bowls are big enough for them? both fresh and salt water bowls are 18oz Tupperware bowls. Also I was wondering what your guy's thoughts and feed back was on air stones. How much are they? And how often do you clean them and how? So if you could help me out that would be great!

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Yup, your dishes are big enough for them! They come in multiple sizes, and the small ones are little cylinders that around the size of a tootsie roll, maybe a bit longer. You can get shaped ones too, that are a bit bigger. The Petsmart near me had snail, turtle, flower, and star shaped airstones. I'm pretty sure the small ones (both cylinders & shapes) are around $1/stone. The smallest pump (which will work fine for both pools, it's the size I have) is about $10. Then you need tubing & a splitter so that you can have the pump run stones in both pools. I'm pretty sure those things are only about $6-7 together. It's a pretty cheap set up & works quite well to maintain humidity if you have the top closed off.

As far as cleaning, I'm not positive...I haven't really cleaned mine yet, I haven't had to. I think I read someone say that you can soak them in a vinegar solution if they start getting clogged up, to help dissolve build-up. Then you rinse them really well before you use them in the pools again. But hopefully someone else can confirm all of that! I've only had my airstones set up for a month or so. I really love them though, they completely solved my humidity issues with minimal danger to the crabs (from flooding, which is more of a risk with foggers/humidifiers), & I like that they bring fresh air into the tank as well.

fantasybookworm wrote:Yup, your dishes are big enough for them! They come in multiple sizes, and the small ones are little cylinders that around the size of a tootsie roll, maybe a bit longer. You can get shaped ones too, that are a bit bigger. The Petsmart near me had snail, turtle, flower, and star shaped airstones. I'm pretty sure the small ones (both cylinders & shapes) are around $1/stone. The smallest pump (which will work fine for both pools, it's the size I have) is about $10. Then you need tubing & a splitter so that you can have the pump run stones in both pools. I'm pretty sure those things are only about $6-7 together. It's a pretty cheap set up & works quite well to maintain humidity if you have the top closed off.

As far as cleaning, I'm not positive...I haven't really cleaned mine yet, I haven't had to. I think I read someone say that you can soak them in a vinegar solution if they start getting clogged up, to help dissolve build-up. Then you rinse them really well before you use them in the pools again. But hopefully someone else can confirm all of that! I've only had my airstones set up for a month or so. I really love them though, they completely solved my humidity issues with minimal danger to the crabs (from flooding, which is more of a risk with foggers/humidifiers), & I like that they bring fresh air into the tank as well.

Thanks for the quick reply!! How are your crabs liking it?

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Air stones last a long time. When they finally do kick the bucket they are so cheap to replace that if more cleaning than a rinse off is required you can just pitch it and buy another one. They are $1.29 at Petsmart.

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I can't tell if my crabbies like the airstones or not, to be honest. They're still relatively new to me, and two of the three crabs are very shy small crabbies. I don't get to see them moving around much. Boromir is the medium guy & he's everywhere in the tank, but I haven't seen him pay any special attention to the airstones. But at least they don't seem to stop him from enjoying the pools.

Let me find a pic from when I used them before my pool upgrades.

I have tons but this is when it was new and before I knew I had to have gravel in the bottom and what not. They hung on them too using the airlines to climb in and out instead of the ramps.

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Just got one set up. I put Oswald in there to see hat he would do. Look at the results.

He's been like this for at least five minutes now.

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I added small airstones (blue midget TootsieRoll size) to my pools last week and my PPs have actually started using the pools for the first time!

Crabinski wrote:I added small airstones (blue midget TootsieRoll size) to my pools last week and my PPs have actually started using the pools for the first time!

That spikey plant by your pool is really cool! Where did you get it?

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kadynadair16 wrote:That spikey plant by your pool is really cool! Where did you get it?

It was on sale at PetSmart a few months ago for the ridiculous price of $3 so I picked up two, the one in the picture and a pale green and red one.

Are all the goodies, the stones and such inside the pools siliconed down, or are they just in there? I'm doing a rebuild and making pools right now and I'm not sure whether to try if it will all just come loose.

If just in there loose they can be taken out to clean. It is much harder to clean them if siliconed down.

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