HCA: Hermit Crab Association

From what I've been reading around here, it seems that crabs are easily stressed (kinda like my Dad, lol) and you have to e careful what you do with their tat. So are there like methods and formulas that need be carried out to the letter when you need to mess with the tank?

Just try not to do it too often. Unless there's an emergency of some kind, try to keep the deep cleans limited to every 6 months.

Besides that,, they're going to be in temporary tat for a few hours no matter what, so there's not much else to worry about. Keep them out of direct sunlight and away from air drafts and nosy cats is all.

Well minor cleans can be done with the crabs still in the tank if you are just talking about remixing the substrate a bit as long as you know where everyone is.

Also you can easily take all of the stuff out of the tank to do a quick boil once every 2-3 months and leave something for them to hide under during the time so they don't get to stressed out.

For deep cleans where you remove everything and the substrate out that's when you need to have some sort of 2nd tank waiting for them with decent humidity and temperature with food and water for them.

Also perhaps a few extra items for them to use while you do your work or use some of the items from the main tank for them to use before you place them back in the cleaned tank and you clean those items afterwards.

When I clean their stuff, I usually only take out one thing at a time to clean. Put it back, then clean something else. This way they have other stuff to hide in and they aren't bothered to much. When I am cleaning I also usually put a treat in there so they forgive me