HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Since you've come to the emergency forum, we know you want a fast answer to your question. In order for us to figure out the problem as quickly as possible, we ask that you answer the following questions as best you can. Some of them may seem odd, but they're all designed to give us the information we need to give you a good solution for your problem. The things in the [ brackets ] are there to make this post easier to read once submitted. Thanks!


1. What kind of substrate is used in your tank and how deep is it?
5:1 play sand/EF

2. Do you have gauges in the tank to measure temperature and humidity? If so, where are they located and what temperature and humidity do they usually read?
yes, we keep them on right upper wall away from pools

3. Is a heat source used in the tank? If so, what?
Yes, a seedling mat with digital thermostat controller. With foil wrapped duct insulation over it. Aquarium LED lights on 12hr, less if affects humidity too much.

4. What types of water are available (fresh or salt) and how is the water treated (what brands of dechlorinator or salt mix and what ratio is used to mix it)?
Prime treated fresh and salt water pools , a drop per gal. Pools measure: 5.5x7.5x4.5
Ocean for saltwater 1/2 cup to a gallon

5. What kinds of food do you feed and how often is it replaced?
1-2 days: oak leaf, green sand, worm poop, dried shrimp, meal worms, oyster shells, nuts, dandelion leaves, hibiscus, seeds, quinoa, chia, egg, dried fruits and veggies. Avoiding fresh atm due to a fruit fly breakout. Almost cleared up! Chicken, cod chips, lobster shells, lots of different foods.

6. How long have you had the crab and what species is it, if known?

All PP's. Crabtain lee, med. we bought 7/31/19 at the beach....hangs head. Educated ourselves on the way home. Cue panic.
Adopted large McGillacutty in Sept.
Adopted small Crabellini in October
Adopted large. Almost jumbo, Oremus, 2 weeks ago

7. Has your crab molted, and how long ago did it happen?
2 molted once right away
Mc Gillacutty too but I believe he is molting again now. He went down about 3 weeks ago.
The new big baby Oremus came with a recent molt.

8. What type of housing are the crabs kept in, what size is it and what kind of lid is on the housing?

29 gallon
30x12x18
Aquarium lid. I keep a quilt on top if it

9. How many crabs are in the tank and about how large are they?

4:
2 med
1 lg
1 xl

10. How many extra shells are usually kept in the tank, if any?
Approx 22 shells atm


11. Have there been any fumes or chemicals near the crabitat recently?
Nope

12. How often do you clean the tank and how?
We re-decorate and deep clean when nobody is molting. By that I mean, soak and bake some pieces, clean boil others. I wipe the glass, scoop up any mold if it happens from food debris as needed.
I change water weekly, by syphon. Sometimes partial changes.

13. Are sponges used in the water dish? If so, how are they cleaned?
no!

14. Has anything new been added to your crabitat recently?
I just bought a cute little moss ball.

15. Is there any other information you would like to share that might be helpful (anything that is regularly part of your crab care, playtime, bathing, etc.)?

Yes, our crabs all use the pools. The bigger ones more so. I just bought an api master kit to test water, gearing up for a new 60 or 75 gal tank with legit pools, have watched Courtney's water video 3 to 4 times now.
Freaked out when I realized our nitrates were very high. Also tested my house water which has 5 to 10 ppms of nitrates. Hard to read the orange vs orange. Not happy about that. Humans can consume up to 10. Crabs it should be 0.

16. Please describe the emergency situation in detail.

Ok so I do have small bubblers, I don't believe they
Over spray in my case, but, maybe. I do believe they keep my humidity perfect. Also, I know my crabs probably dump water out ther and of course they dig under it. I never mist btw. But, I live in the Northeast and it's cold, so I do get a lot of condensation in the tank on the glass. Even though I keep tank in the woodstove room where it's usually toasty. After lurking boards I decided to stick a chop stick down the side. There was some water pooling a little. It did Not smell. It seemed to evaporate in a few hours. I'm trying not to panic
As I have a big girl molting. Would it make sense to maybe do more "vent" holes? Thank you for any help!

.

Oops, meant to go look at gauges.
Humidity is 75%
Temp 82
It's usually around there, or like 80/82. My heat mat is set to 84

We dealt with two floods last year due to bubblers and our straws constantly going in and out of the pools we had water build up at the bottom.

Upon further digging to the bottom we got the musty basement smell and gray looking sand. Floods and bacterial blooms. We ended up loosing two crabs in that fiasco.

If you know where your big guy is molting try to dig down away from where he is. Molting in either a bacterial bloom or flooded tank are almost certain death sentences for hermits. We dug a 6"x6" area out of one area all the way to the bottom of the tank. Carefully dig a little at a time inspecting the substrate as you go. If you get any type of funky smell of weird colored substrate you will need to dig all the bad substrate out and replace it. Some people just replace the bad substrate. I prefer to do all new. That way you know you got everything bad out.

With a hole dug into a corner the water will pool in that area. We used an old towel to soak up the water and wrung it out in a bucket. After a few minutes the water will pool again. Keep repeating until you get as much water out as possible.

Unfortunately if you find either a flood or bloom you will need to carefully dig up your molting crab and isolate him from the others. Digging up molting crabs is always the very last resort.

Is there any possible way to upload some pictures of the water pooling and of your substrate before you would attempt to dig up the molter? I would like to have some reference and a few more people take a look before going further before telling you to dig up a molter.

Here is the care guide for substrate. There is an area that talks about flooding and bacterial blooms. It will give you an idea what you may be getting in to.
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=92542

Hi motorcrab. I have read a lot of your posts. They have helped me a lot. I think one of them put it in my head to check the substrate for this possible issue.

I just went out and bought a big 75 tonight, my thought being I may as well since I'm potentially moving them all. But that will take time to get it up to conditions. How long do you think, once it's set up? I have 2 other tanks I could get running quicker I guess.
At any rate, yes I can post pics. How do I do that? I think I have seen in forum to use tapatalk?

Crabalicious wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 16, 2020 8:58 pm

Hi motorcrab. I have read a lot of your posts. They have helped me a lot. I think one of them put it in my head to check the substrate for this possible issue.

I just went out and bought a big 75 tonight, my thought being I may as well since I'm potentially moving them all. But that will take time to get it up to conditions. How long do you think, once it's set up? I have 2 other tanks I could get running quicker I guess.
At any rate, yes I can post pics. How do I do that? I think I have seen in forum to use tapatalk?

This should help!
https://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/p ... =8&t=87783

We set a new 65 gallon up and left the substrate outside in freezing cold overnight. It took about two days for everything to get to the correct conditions. In the summer months when it's warm we already put crabs in the new tank as soon as we were done decorating.

Even if you set up a temporary tank with just a few inches of Eco Earth for a few days you will run less of a risk of another crab going to molt in a possible bacterial bloom.

To upload pictures you will need to go through the Tap Talk app on your phone.

Ok thank you for that. I will set up temporary tanks.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

Here you can see the water. 2 days ago one crab was tunneling and came up under that ladder. You can see or I can see how much sub settled under water pool.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

It does look like there's some sort of water build up. But I'm not an expert, so please don't take my word for it!

Yup, I see water!

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

Oof! And there a crab down there. @Motörcrab , please help them! I don't want to tell them to do something they shouldn't! They need an expert, which is not me! Ha!

That's definitely a flood. Any water laying in the bottom of the tank has the potential to go bad and cause a flood.

I would start on getting that other tank ready ASAP! After we lost two crabs in a similar situation I don't want to see you waste any time. Our one crab we found dead when we were pulling the sub out. The other one Eddie was still alive and missing all but one leg. I hand fed him daily for nearly a month before he passed. It's getting close to a year since we lost him and I still tear up thinking about him. I'm not the emotional boo hoo type person either.

Motörcrab wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 16, 2020 10:14 pm

That's definitely a flood. Any water laying in the bottom of the tank has the potential to go bad and cause a flood.

I would start on getting that other tank ready ASAP! After we lost two crabs in a similar situation I don't want to see you waste any time. Our one crab we found dead when we were pulling the sub out. The other one Eddie was still alive and missing all but one leg. I hand fed him daily for nearly a month before he passed. It's getting close to a year since we lost him and I still tear up thinking about him. I'm not the emotional boo hoo type person either.

Aw, that sucks Motor Honestly, I would guess that you aren't very emotional (is that a bad thing?), so I can see how close you were to those little guys. Crabalicious, please take Motorcrab's advice; I really hate dead crabbies. I've lost many as I've realized what I've been doing wrong and upgraded. I had a flood for a long time once, no matter how bad I hate to admit it, and after fixing it that Christmas both my crabs, including my original, died on the same day. I'll never forget how my original died though: she came out of her shell(which was in the coconut all the way in the left side of the tank) and crawled all the way to the right side of the tank and died facing the window, where sun was pouring in through the curtains. It was such an inspirational way for her to die. She lived super long in horrible conditions, and I love my little survivor so much <3 I have only one picture of her, and that's her crawling out of my hand and me laughing She warms my heart, and I really hope your crabbies are okay. I've upgraded from a wire kritter carrier and about an inch of sub to 4/5in in a 10g. I cannot say I'm the best crabber, but I know I am trying to make their lives better, I care about them, and will keep upgrading until I die, frankly (no escaping for me now!), and so are you all. I hope they're okay! <3
(wOaH, I just had a moment there, sorry 'bout that!)

You're killing me crabby, you're breaking my heart!

Motorcrab, sadly I have read your story and more like it here. I'm working on the temp tanks already, I'm very nervous about pulling my molter up though. I have read about how to do it and to clarify, when I figure out where she is, I should try to what scoop up a lot of sand with her? Should I also put her in EE, but a lot deeper? Or the usual 5:1?

Let me see if I can find the one post about digging up molter's.