Iso Poll

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu May 10, 2007 7:05 am

I didn't vote, because I don't use any ISO, either in tank or seperate tank for molting. I let them molt undisturbed in the main tanks. To move them to a seperate ISO tank, would make me believe that they would stress. Also, since my substrate is so deep, and theyusually dig to or near the bottom, barriers wouldn't work in the main tanks. There are also those crabs that dig down, but I am not sure exactly where they are.

I only use ISO for some new crabs, or sick or injured crabs. I also use the ISO tanks, if a molter is dug up during a deep clean. That's it.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu May 10, 2007 9:20 am

I do the same as Kathy. Molters only get iso'd if dug up. I think it's less stressful for them to be able to do it in the main tank undisturbed. Besides, can you imagine trying to watch everyone for premolt signs and iso them at the right time????

mrbonzai211 · Post by **mrbonzai211** » Thu May 10, 2007 12:40 pm

Just a reminder, made a little mistake on the wording of the poll.....

Selection 1 is for people who let their crabs molt in the tank naturally. No human interference at all.

Again sorry about the wording, kinda got two ideas mixed into one and didn't proof read before submitting.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu May 10, 2007 2:36 pm

I have 50 crabs, and sometimes I noticed pre-molt signs and other times their molt surprises me. It seems to me to be very impracticle with my colony.

But I know a crabber who ISOs in dry sand and she has close to a hundred crabs, and has a very good molting success rate. So basically not only do all of them molt in ISO, but they all surface molt, and she handles molters also, she sprays their gills about 24 hours after they molt. This crabber has the most unusal method I have ever heard of, but it works for this crabber very well.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu May 10, 2007 2:44 pm

I only put hurt crabs in the ISO. The rest molt in the main tank. None of my molters ever get disturbed by the other crabs. I have accidentally disturbed a few molters, but they didn't really seem to care.

DustAndEchoes · Post by **DustAndEchoes** » Thu May 10, 2007 3:01 pm

i did a poll like this a looooong time ago...most people didn't ISO their crabs.
One reason i stopped doing it was it just got too hard to keep track of them all. It's been a little over 2 years since i stopped ISO and I have had no molting related problems.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu May 10, 2007 6:31 pm

I just feel why stress them out more than need be.. even a crab that's not molting gets stressed out by being upped and moved to a new environment.. so why stress a crab out while they are @ there most vaunerable.. sure certain circumstances arise where you have no choice to ISO.. but I'm a firm believer in leaving them be and observing that no other crabs bother them..

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon May 14, 2007 5:33 pm

I never have ISOed my crabs for molting. Now i do not want to offend any of the ISOing crowd so do not take this the wrong way, But To me ISOing crabs for molting just does more harm than good. Also, the reasons for ISOing molters such as " ISO crabs so they will not be eatin by other crabs, the smells makes thme go nuts" just seem not to be based on much. I personlly have not seen this in my tanks infact I have never seen any aggression towards molters at all. However this could be because half of the group molt around the same time of year in Spring and summer months,and the other half molts in the colder fall and winter months. So there are not a whole lot of crabs up at once

but like many things in this hobby it is really only matters if your crabs are happy and healthy which should make you happy as well.

However I do think ISOing newcrabs is a very wise idea to elimenate the nortorius PPS syndrome.

Cheers ^-^V

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:18 am

After reading much info about ISOs, I went to a lot of trouble to set up what I call an IMU - Intensive Molt Unit. When it looked like one was going down, I usually waited until I hadn't seen the crab for two days. Then my husband and I would work together to get the crab into the IMU. But every time we did this, the crab would be up and about by the next day, showing absolutely no signs of wanting to molt.

I still have my IMU, just in case, but since I have 6" of substrate in their tank, and my 8 little pretty ones, the largest one is a medium. After we took her out of IMU, she waited about a week to molt and had a very successful one.

So I vote, as long as you have deep enough substrate, let them do what they gotta do!

xxx · Post by **xxx** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:00 pm

I don't ISO my molters. I feel that moving them to another enviorment would be to stressful and they won't molt. Keeping track of which crabs are premolt/molting in my tank is nearly impossible anyway. If one of mine surface molts, I won't move the crab and I'll just put a barrier up since I don't like moving molters.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:10 pm

I... think this poll is flawed. I didn't see "No ISO at all" and accidentally chose, "In-tank ISO" which I thought meant the same as just letting them molt in the tank.

Oops, I saw the correction and it does mean what I thought it did.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 10:55 pm

I wouldnâ€™t call using an iso â€œunnaturalâ€

HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Iso Poll

How many people either use an in tank barrier, separate tank iso, or let their crabs molt naturally and undisturbed?