HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hey guys! As the title says, our power is out. We have 12 inches of snow and it's in the 20's outside. It's about 65 degrees in the house, tank temp is about 74. We have our generator plugged in and running their heating pad, but we can't run it through the night.

We have towels and blankets we can wrap the tank with, and foil. We also have hand warmers and adhesive toe warmers. Can anyone advise me on what to do? Thanks.

Sounds like you're doing what you can. Try to keep them above 70, that's within the safe zone. Blankets will really help!

wodesorel wrote:Sounds like you're doing what you can. Try to keep them above 70, that's within the safe zone. Blankets will really help!

What should we do with the warmers? Seal them in Tupperware? We are a bit concerned about sealing them up.

They need exposure to air in order to work so they can't be sealed up tight. I'm not sure, maybe hang them from the lid?

wodesorel wrote:They need exposure to air in order to work so they can't be sealed up tight. I'm not sure, maybe hang them from the lid?

I'm not sure how I can hang them from the lid. The toe warmers are supposed to be in an enclosed environment, like a boot, so they should be able to be sealed?

Just taped two toe warmers to the outside, one on each side, about 3-4 inches apart, to hopefully at least make a warm corner. The warmers are about 3x3 inches each, I'd say. Taped some foil over the warmers and then taped two blankets to the tank. Temp was 73 right before we covered it up. All we can do now is hope, I guess.

How did it go? Our power was out for about 6 hours last weekend, -15C outside. The tank was 78 to start, when I realized I needed to do something, it was down to 73. It only got down to 71 after the 6 hours tho!

curlysister wrote:How did it go? Our power was out for about 6 hours last weekend, -15C outside. The tank was 78 to start, when I realized I needed to do something, it was down to 73. It only got down to 71 after the 6 hours tho!

Seemed to go alright - power came back at about 3:15 AM, but I didn't get the UTH plugged in until morning. Temp was at 74 when I got up, so I assume it held steady. Still lots of snow outside!

Oh man! I would freeze to death if it were -15C here. I can't even handle 50F without a coat.

Hahaha, we were glad it was ONLY -15C and wasn't really too cold outside! Canadian Prairies, it can easily get to -40C in the depths of winter, especially with wind chill (that's when the air temp + the strengh of the wind makes it feel colder; for example -20C air temp with a wind speed of 30km/hr would make it feel as if it was actually -33C).