To understand why there is no right or wrong to crab care
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:45 pm
Just felt like posting an explaination for why there is no simple right or wrong to crab care. Why it's not a case of "do it this way or your crabs will die".
The reason is simply because environment is different for everyone. So what might be acceptable for one person might not work for another.
In general, the care I've laid out in the Care Sheet is the simplest, easiest-to-implement complete basic care that statistically will give you the best chance of success. But it by no means is always the best way for any one person or any one crabitat.
Temp & Humidity: If you live near the ocean in a middle latitude (i.e., florida, etc), the natural air conditions are already perfect for crabs. If you don't have de-humidifying air conditioning, you could let your crabs live in an open-air wire cage. If you maintain moist sand, the humidity at second level height may not need to be close to the perfect 75. If you maintain higher heat, it might make crabs more tolerant to lower humidity ranges. And FYI, the perfect 75/75 is just a reference average, not a perfect stable condition. In real life, temp and humidity vary as much as 25%/15o each day.
Substrate & Molting: You only need a digable substrate if you want your crabs to molt in the main tank. Once your crabs and stable and destressed, you could "micro-manage" your crabs. You could let them live in shallow (safe) bark or gravel. You could bathe them every week, and always keep up to date on every crabs molting stage. Once you notice them become premolt, they could be moved to a special molting chamber. The more common method these days, self-bathing and main-tank molting, was something I pioneered 4 years ago because I was lazy, not because it was the only way ^_^ They could have other shelters or beds of moss/leaves to hide in, rather than bury in sand.
Water & Food: If you have well water, it probably isn't treated with chloramines, and a regular dechlorinator (or letting it sit) would work. While city water needs chloramines and heavy metals removed. There is no evidence at all (search for my previous posts) that aloe, stress coat, or slime coat is bad for hermits. Commercial foods are forumlated to contain the correct complete diet. Some work went into them, and won't kill your crabs. The only issue is that some add preservatives, and certain metal compounds that, while OK for mammal foods, aren't for crabs. But as long as a commercial food doesn't contain those, it should be alright. And there's no concrete evidence to say that the minute quantities of the chemicals in commercial foods are actually harmful. And it also might depend on species too. For instance, I have evidence from my own experiments that copper sulfate may affect Ecuadorian molts, but PPs might be unaffected. So if you only have PPs, they may be hardier to some ingredients than more fragile crabs. Also, inland species of crabs like PPs and Brevimanus may not require saltwater, even if they still like.
Painted Shells: Dyed shells pose no risk of flaking. And there's never been any evidence than flaked paint has harmed crabs. Crabs will tend not to like them for natural reasons, but there's never been any evidence of a painted shell doing harm to a crab (except if the crab is placed into the shell before the paint/dye has cured, in which case there has been evidence). Some paint may contain harmful ingredients, but that doesn't mean the crab eats it. Crabs encounter countless harmful substances everyday in the wild. They have natural instincts on what to eat, and what not to, and vary their diet purposfully to prevent overdosing on anything bad.
The point of this post is just to remind everything that there's still very little we know for absolute certain about crabs. Most of it is just best practices. And the best practices tend to turn upside down every few years anyway. I still of course only "recommend" what's in the care sheet. But doing something else doesn't mean you're going to kill your crabs. In fact, you might find a better way!
The reason is simply because environment is different for everyone. So what might be acceptable for one person might not work for another.
In general, the care I've laid out in the Care Sheet is the simplest, easiest-to-implement complete basic care that statistically will give you the best chance of success. But it by no means is always the best way for any one person or any one crabitat.
Temp & Humidity: If you live near the ocean in a middle latitude (i.e., florida, etc), the natural air conditions are already perfect for crabs. If you don't have de-humidifying air conditioning, you could let your crabs live in an open-air wire cage. If you maintain moist sand, the humidity at second level height may not need to be close to the perfect 75. If you maintain higher heat, it might make crabs more tolerant to lower humidity ranges. And FYI, the perfect 75/75 is just a reference average, not a perfect stable condition. In real life, temp and humidity vary as much as 25%/15o each day.
Substrate & Molting: You only need a digable substrate if you want your crabs to molt in the main tank. Once your crabs and stable and destressed, you could "micro-manage" your crabs. You could let them live in shallow (safe) bark or gravel. You could bathe them every week, and always keep up to date on every crabs molting stage. Once you notice them become premolt, they could be moved to a special molting chamber. The more common method these days, self-bathing and main-tank molting, was something I pioneered 4 years ago because I was lazy, not because it was the only way ^_^ They could have other shelters or beds of moss/leaves to hide in, rather than bury in sand.
Water & Food: If you have well water, it probably isn't treated with chloramines, and a regular dechlorinator (or letting it sit) would work. While city water needs chloramines and heavy metals removed. There is no evidence at all (search for my previous posts) that aloe, stress coat, or slime coat is bad for hermits. Commercial foods are forumlated to contain the correct complete diet. Some work went into them, and won't kill your crabs. The only issue is that some add preservatives, and certain metal compounds that, while OK for mammal foods, aren't for crabs. But as long as a commercial food doesn't contain those, it should be alright. And there's no concrete evidence to say that the minute quantities of the chemicals in commercial foods are actually harmful. And it also might depend on species too. For instance, I have evidence from my own experiments that copper sulfate may affect Ecuadorian molts, but PPs might be unaffected. So if you only have PPs, they may be hardier to some ingredients than more fragile crabs. Also, inland species of crabs like PPs and Brevimanus may not require saltwater, even if they still like.
Painted Shells: Dyed shells pose no risk of flaking. And there's never been any evidence than flaked paint has harmed crabs. Crabs will tend not to like them for natural reasons, but there's never been any evidence of a painted shell doing harm to a crab (except if the crab is placed into the shell before the paint/dye has cured, in which case there has been evidence). Some paint may contain harmful ingredients, but that doesn't mean the crab eats it. Crabs encounter countless harmful substances everyday in the wild. They have natural instincts on what to eat, and what not to, and vary their diet purposfully to prevent overdosing on anything bad.
The point of this post is just to remind everything that there's still very little we know for absolute certain about crabs. Most of it is just best practices. And the best practices tend to turn upside down every few years anyway. I still of course only "recommend" what's in the care sheet. But doing something else doesn't mean you're going to kill your crabs. In fact, you might find a better way!
