warning with change

[brad873]

sorry all if this does not sound good, but could all members who turn out to have bad conditions and are goin to change them plees do it very slowely. wene i first came to this site i reelised my crabs had very bad conditions, so naturaly i changed them, but i changed them all at once and i overwhelmed them, jewels was ok with it but as many of you know ruby fell ill and died . this is not putting the HCA down, just sayin be carfull at how fast u chang things round. the main reesen ruby died is cause of all the symptoms she gave of moults ans kept turning them on and off so she kept going from tank to tank and got stressed. remember, this is an A-class site and u should listen to wat the have 2 say, but slow down a bit, i dont want anyone to go through the same as i did

[brad873]

oh, and to all modirators, if u feel this is bad press for the hca, plees deleet it

[Guest]

I think it is a good warning Brad. A lot of us use a gradual method when introducing new crabs to our tanks for the same reason. I think Jedimasterthrash is working on an article to address this...

Check out this article on exactly what you posted about.

http://coenobita.org/xoops/modules/arti ... e.php?id=4

http://coenobita.org/xoops/modules/arti ... .php?id=14

and another helpful article...

http://coenobita.org/xoops/modules/arti ... e.php?id=5

[Guest]

Comparitive Example For PPS Practices
Posted on Fri 16 Mar 2007 by Sue (20 reads)
Little Billy has had 3 hermit crabs since his 12 birthday. He has a 20 gallon tank housing his 3 small PP crabs. One day when he is at the store picking up some ocean salt water for his crabs, he spots a tank containing 2 poor little Ruggies that have no water except for a damp sponge, huge pellets of food that he doubts they have even attempted to eat, and no ground cover to protect them from the 100watt heat lamp that is shining directly on them from an open tank top. Billy has been a very conscientious crab owner. He explored on-line information on how to care for hermit crabs and has all the bells and whistles to keep his crab people happy. He has proudly seen his crabs molt, grow and prosper for the past year. Billy knows that the little Ruggies will not last long in the current conditions they are in. He consults a clerk, advises her of the poor crabitat conditions, and notes that there will likely be no changes made based on his advice. Billy’s mom is a sweetheart and lets Billy rescue these poor crabs from their sorry condition. Billy finds out from the cashier that those are the last ones from their shipment last month, and now they can order more. (God forbid). Billy provides his new crabs with a dip into his tank’s water dish, and then they scurry to hide in the handy cave he has for his crabs. Well, a week later, and Billy has still not seen his new crabs. He doesn’t think they have even been to the food dish. He isn’t too concerned since they are likely de-stressing in the wonderful conditions in his tank. Well a couple of more weeks pass. Billy thinks he seen one of his new guys in the water dish, now there is signs of digging, this crab must be molting. Well another couple of weeks lapse, and it is now high time to do a deep clean. Billy carefully digs around to see if he can locate where his crabs may be down molting so he proceeds cautiously. Billy takes out some of his plants and shells for rinsing…aha, he has found the top of one of his new crab’s shells…he checks to see how the little guy is faring and discovers that it has died. Billy is heart broken. Finally the entire tank is unearthed and Billy discovers that neither one of his new little ruggies made it!! That darn PPS, it is just not fair…


Same example, but now in context of enlightenment of the PPS solution:


Little Billy has had 3 hermit crabs since his 12 birthday. He has a 20 gallon tank housing his 3 small PP crabs. One day when he is at the store picking up some ocean salt water for his crabs, he spots a tank containing 2 poor little Ruggies that have no water except for a damp sponge, huge pellets of food that he doubts they have even attempted to eat, and no ground cover to protect them from the 100watt heat lamp that is shining directly on them from an open tank top. Billy has been a very conscientious crab owner. He explored on-line information on how to care for hermit crabs and has all the bells and whistles to keep his crab people happy. He has proudly seen his crabs molt, grow and prosper for the past year. Billy knows that the little Ruggies will not last long in the current conditions they are in. He consults a clerk, advises her of the poor crabitat conditions, and notes that there will likely be no changes made based on his advice. Billy’s mom is a sweetheart and lets Billy rescue these poor crabs from their sorry condition. Billy finds out from the cashier that those are the last ones from their shipment last month, and now they can order more. (God forbid). Billy goes home and sets up his 5 gallon glass tank to ISO his new crabs. They need help to be able to recover from those horrible store conditions. Billy asks his mom to help check his math. He figured that the crabs were in very hot and dry conditions. He needs to keep the room temperature at 72 and boost the humidity to a bit over 60% for the next couple of days. He puts in a dish of ocean salt water, and a dish of regular dechlorinated water and a big fat chunk of coconut dipped in honey and sprinkled with bloodworm and spirulina. A few days later, he increases the humidity to 70%, he keeps the water filled up and notices there has not been too much food eaten. Oh well, he throws in some fresh apple and sprinkles it with some brine shrimp and hopes for the best. Well a few days later he increases the humidity up to 75%, this in large part by placing some soaked moss into the tank. Ah, they are eating some. Billy opts to keep the humidity at 75% and see if they continue to eat. Billy sees that they are starting to go more to the food dish. He tries them on some avocado and a silverside head. A few days later Billy adjusts the humidity up to 79% (which happens to be the RH midrange for his 20gallon tank), but there just is no crab to be found. So he checks on them a few days later, changes over the food, keeps tabs on their movement. Into the third week, he notices that more food is disappearing! He is glad since he was worried that they may not make it. He is going to let them stay in the ISO for another good week, just to make sure they keep eating well! Well about 5 weeks pass, and Billy wants to see his new crabs enjoy the main tank. Whoa, one of the crabs molted, and he is alive, yahoo!

Ok see the subtle difference?

This is one scenario. There are many others, and this includes crabs who do not suffer from poor conditions. Ultimately it is up to the crab owner how to proceed. The important thing to stress is that the responsibility lies with the consumer (purchaser of the crab(s)) to gather and observe as much information as possible about your pet's existing living conditions as compared to what you will be providing them at home. This information will be the foundation of how you can implement a strategy to get them through the critical hurdle of PPS.

Once a committee has had the opportunity to hone the procedural aspects, and provided the accepted time interval for defining PPS deaths, we will try to specify more clearly a procedure to follow.

RFcrabs
Sue

Copyright © by Coenobita.org All Right Reserved.
Published on: 2006-03-08 (154 reads)

[NaRnAR]

No brad, I think this post is great to have up. I think its something that isnt stressed to our new crabbers if at all that changes to a crabs environment should be gradual and not dramatic. I agree with you 100%, that their environment should be changed gradual, or you start shocking their system.

[troppo]

I think it's also a great thread to have up. Have seen so many cases of new crabs that are ill and some members saying to change the conditions of the tank right away to be optimal, but that just shocks the crabs system even though what is advised is made with the very best of intentions. I agree completely, it should be a very gradual thing with changing the conditions to be better, there's nothing sadder than seeing the amount of crabs dying from PPS

[Guest]

It is a good post to have up. I know when I help new crabbers, i dont stress the fact that they need to slow down more when correcting their crabitat. Its a huge shock to them to actually go INTO good conditions when they have been in bad ones... Odd but true.... Thank you for bringing this to our attention..

[burnin4Christ]

great idea! i think we all could use the reminder especially when brining new crabbies home.

[Guest]

It's for this reason that I've heard that one should wait until one gets new crabs home before even setting up the new crab iso unit. So that you don't have to destroy a tank with wonderful conditions to get down to what new crabs would be more accustomed to.

[Guest]

It's why I ISO all new crabs for a month before putting them into my main tank.

[Guest]

It's for this reason that I've heard that one should wait until one gets new crabs home before even setting up the new crab iso unit. So that you don't have to destroy a tank with wonderful conditions to get down to what new crabs would be more accustomed to.

That works for newbies... Most new people to hermit crabs do not read up on them. So how would they know to do that? Thats why the ISO is so important, because with that you can put your new hermit crabs in there, and slowly raise it to the correct levels. But the question is, how much should we improve these levels each day? 1*F per day, or 5*F per day??? Any one have an idea?

[Guest]

Yes! it is all outlined for you in the first article I posted. They are excellent articles!

[Mamakins]

Yes it's a great post to read. and those articles were very informative Featherscrabs. I agree it should be stressed more with us newbies. I'm convinced we're about to loose our first hermie to PPS and my son will not be happy. He's been half burried or two weeks now his shell is visible ad there has been no movement at all. If I peek down I can see little twitches of leg movement at the opening of his shell but that's it. He has a little cap of honey in front of him and some damp moss covering him. If he's not going to bounce back, I hope he passes soon to end his misery.

[brad873]

thought i would reserect this 4 more newbies