HCA: Hermit Crab Association

One of our first hermies to successfully molt is still in our 10 g iso. I am planning to dunk her in a bath and move her to the 20 g main tank. My question is: what do u guys do with ur empty iso tanks after a hermie leaves the tank?? Do u empty everything out of it and do a deep clean? Or clean out everything in there and just move the sub around?? I'm just wondering if I should just clean the whole thing out and put it in storage and take it out if or when needed? Does the sub go bad?

If your crab was just molting, I would just mix the substrate to aerate. I keep an ISO tank ready for any unforseen problems. I keep the temp and humidity at good levels, mix up the substrate and add salt water as needed. I use the salt water to moisten all of my substrate to help combat mold and unwanted insects. I hope this helps.

Kittykimbro@att.net wrote:If your crab was just molting, I would just mix the substrate to aerate. I keep an ISO tank ready for any unforseen problems. I keep the temp and humidity at good levels, mix up the substrate and add salt water as needed. I use the salt water to moisten all of my substrate to help combat mold and unwanted insects. I hope this helps.

Thank you, kittykimbro!!

When my iso sits empty, I scrape the top layer off to remove any hidden food and poop and let it dry out. That way when I need it, all I have to do is add some water and it's ready. It also prevents mold growth since there is air flow.

If space is an issue, you can tear it down, but I would recommend keeping everything together you would need to set it back up in an emergency. Nothing is worse than finding a naked just molted crab during a midnight bathroom trip! I recently stored about 20 gallons of used substrate by letting it dry out and then putting it into a roughneck rubbermaid container. I'm glad I did, because I needed all of it during the last emergency. All I had to do was move and wet it and it was ready.

wodesorel wrote:When my iso sits empty, I scrape the top layer off to remove any hidden food and poop and let it dry out. That way when I need it, all I have to do is add some water and it's ready. It also prevents mold growth since there is air flow.

If space is an issue, you can tear it down, but I would recommend keeping everything together you would need to set it back up in an emergency. Nothing is worse than finding a naked just molted crab during a midnight bathroom trip! I recently stored about 20 gallons of used substrate by letting it dry out and then putting it into a roughneck rubbermaid container. I'm glad I did, because I needed all of it during the last emergency. All I had to do was move and wet it and it was ready.

Great idea! Thank u wodesorel!!