HCA: Hermit Crab Association

So about 6 weeks ago, my three crabs (two medium, one small) went down for their first molt. This has been especially nerve-wracking for me, as I've been trying to keep my heat up (even with Reflectix the output just doesn't seem to be great). So I've been carefully curating the space, adding fake foliage and a coco fiber climbing wall. I bought a bunch of new food, put some worm casings in a small scallop shell and decided to stop spending money until I know they're not dead.

Last night, I heard a bunch of ticking right before I went to bed and this morning, though I haven't seen a crab, a shell had fallen out of the shell shop!!! This is great news! I'm pretty sure I even yelled something like "[expletive} YES!" quite loudly. But the funny thing was, the scallop shell with worm casings was gone - the whole thing, shell and all, vanished I had to do some mild excavating to find it under the sand. So that was kind of funny. What a lil weirdo. Hopefully the culprit will show his face soon!

Congratulations


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Marvellous! Keep us aprized of sightings!

I'm sure that means your pet sand will be sand no longer soon! Have you made sure your temperature gauge is working correctly by comparing it to another one? Or is there a way to boost your house's ambient temp by a few degrees?

Rawrgeous wrote:I'm sure that means your pet sand will be sand no longer soon! Have you made sure your temperature gauge is working correctly by comparing it to another one? Or is there a way to boost your house's ambient temp by a few degrees?

I have checked with a few gauges. There seems to be a bit of gradient - one corner is at 84 but it seems beyond that, we're looking at 74-77 degrees throughout, which is disappointing!! The ambient temp of the house is in the mid-70s, and that is already to the chagrin of my husband. I may end up trying to reseal it up this weekend, maybe it's just not on snug enough.

Congratulations on a successful molt!!!


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Do you have a uth that you can insulate? Flukers and ultratherms can be insulated with reflectix, or just plain cardboard and foil. It brings the temp up in my tat by at least 5 degrees with just some thick cardboard. If you don't have one that you can safely insulate you could consider doing the sides, and the area your uth doesn't cover? Also, you could try a blanket across the top of the tank to keep some more warmth inside. Towels in the dryer throughout the day could help supplement while you are trying to figure out how to get it warmed up. I hope this helps. Congrats on the succesful molt btw! I should have mentioned that in my first post!

Rawrgeous wrote:Do you have a uth that you can insulate? Flukers and ultratherms can be insulated with reflectix, or just plain cardboard and foil. It brings the temp up in my tat by at least 5 degrees with just some thick cardboard. If you don't have one that you can safely insulate you could consider doing the sides, and the area your uth doesn't cover? Also, you could try a blanket across the top of the tank to keep some more warmth inside. Towels in the dryer throughout the day could help supplement while you are trying to figure out how to get it warmed up. I hope this helps. Congrats on the succesful molt btw! I should have mentioned that in my first post!

I have an ultratherm. I've insulted it with cardboard, foil and reflectix over the top. It still doesn't seem to be boosting much.

I have a cocofiber wall on the part of the tank with the heater - could that be affecting it?



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Could try it a day without the cocowall on the heater side and see how that affects the heat. I have ours on the adjacent wall from the UTH. I try not to put anything too obstructing in front of it:)


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I think it might be the cocowall, because if your house is in the mid 70's your tank shouldn't have trouble climbing the extra few degrees to 80, especially with that much insulation. I suspect most of your heat is getting trapped between the insulation and the wall. Is the glass on the other side of the uth warm to the touch? I know it seems silly, but is there anyway the cord got unplugged accidentally?

Rawrgeous wrote:I think it might be the cocowall, because if your house is in the mid 70's your tank shouldn't have trouble climbing the extra few degrees to 80, especially with that much insulation. I suspect most of your heat is getting trapped between the insulation and the wall. Is the glass on the other side of the uth warm to the touch? I know it seems silly, but is there anyway the cord got unplugged accidentally?

I will do some testing this weekend. It is not unplugged because I have it attached to a thermostat that's always displaying the temp.


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Looks like moving the coco fiber wall has set the temp to a steady 78 degrees. Still not quite where I'd like it, so I'll have to do some re-insulating. So I did cardboard then foil then reflectix - is that an appropriate order?

Also looks as though my littlest was my successful molten. She's nice and furry and is eating her weight in shrimp tails and organic popcorn.


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