Tank is now flooding..

[purpleperson]

Ahhhh, these last few weeks I am just not having much luck with my crabs and the tat. Oh well.

Here's my problem this time.... After realizing last week that my sub was a bit more wet than usual on the bottom, I dug holes and put a couple roles of paper towels in there and let it sit for a bit.. The extra water seemed to absorb right up, and the sand seemed to return to normal. Or so I thought.

Since that happened the crabs still seemed to be digging to a certain point, then just stopping. While doing to normal maintenance today I decided to dig down to the bottom of the tank and check the sub. On one side of the tank, the last 2 inches is "soupy" and on the other side it's about an inch or so. It's much worse than last time. This has never happened to me before. I tired using towels and paper towel to absorb some of the water, but it is still quite wet down there. The sand doesn't smell funky at this point. I do not have a False bottom. I believe the cause may be the Eco earth as I don't think I mixed it properly. What do I do now? Do you think I should just replace all of the sand and start over or is there some way I can dry it out or something? Crabs are all fine... I have one that is definitely getting ready to molt within the next week or so so I really need to find a way to fix the problem quick.


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[pearl29mi]

I'm believe you have to replace it all I would do it soon though so the crab that's getting ready to molt doesn't surface molt. Do you have any crabs underground?

[purpleperson]

Ugh that's too bad. I can't get Eco earth here either. Let's hope the hardware store has some in stock then... And no none thankfully. I wouldn't have dug around so much if I did.


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[CallaLily]

As long as it doesn't smell bad you shouldn't have to replace it. You can mix in more dry substrate or cocofiber to get it to the right consistency.

Do you run a humidifier or fogger? Spray often? Double check water dishes for leaks too.

[purpleperson]

Oh okay that's a bonus then! I believe I have some dry sand at home so hopefully that does the trick.

No to humidifier or fogger, and I do spray probably more often than I should.. I use a spray bottle to re-moisten my moss pit almost every day. Checked dishes for leaks all day, we are good there.


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[Crabber85]

With that much water accumulation on the bottom it sound like your either overdoing it with the spraying, the dishes have a slow leak or the crabs are dumping too much water which can be caused because they are purposefully digging right next to the dishes mounding the substrate into them which will then wick the water out or they are filling their shells and dumping that water which is a very common occurence.

To me the most logical explination would be that your just misting way too often and what goes up must come down so eventually over the course of several days of you spraying excessively all that water has settled into the substrate and migrated to the bottom which is a very common issue for those of us who have a tendency to overspray or spray too often.

I've learned over the years that there are two ways to fix a flooded bottom you can either add fresh dry substrate in or you can take the soggy substrate out and bake it though the latter option is only doable if you have no crabbies down for a molt.

I think the biggest way to solve this issue so it doesn't happen again is to avoid spraying the enclosure more than once every couple of days and if you need to re-moisten your moss you can just simply take it out and fill a bucket with a little dechlorinated tap water and dunk the moss making sure to wring it out, this is what I do when the moss in my moss pits has started drying out and its actually a very good thing to do this once every two weeks or so to wash any fecal matter or other debris off the moss lenghtening its life before it starts to develop an odor.

[purpleperson]

The sand does occasionally wick the water away as the crabs love digging around them in my case. I don't think it would really be caused by spraying as my moss pit is elevated off of the sand and the water doesn't drip down, plus the side with the moss pit is the side where flooding is not that bad. I strongly believe it is because I didn't know how to properly mix the EE as all flooding related issues have started since I added EE and I had never ever had problems before.


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[CallaLily]

How much cocofiber? In my experience having all or mostly cocofiber is hard to keep at the right consistency. I used to help my mother with her crabitat because of her fibromyalgia, she used all cocofiber in the beginning. It always ended up a huge soppy stinky mess. I finally convinced her to go with mostly play sand and it was much easier after that. I've stuck with all play sand or a mix with a little cocofiber in my crabitats. Works well for me.

Another question. Are your water dishes down in the substrate? If they're level with the surface, substrate could be wicking water out of the dishes if the crabs push it over too close.

[purpleperson]

I have about 4 18kg bags of play sand and 2 bricks of Eco earth in the tank right now. I think that the Eco earth was too wet when I put it in :/

They are down in the sub, but about an inch of extra stick up as It helps prevent sand getting dragged in most times. The sand that gets in there is usually from them digging as they love digging right next to them lol


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[Laurie LeAnn]

I make sure my dishes are heavy so they can't tip them. I got in this flood stage cause one end of my tank is higher than the other so the higher end dries out faster..so I would end up over wetting it and then where did that water go?? Yep, down to lower end! I tried to take a lot of the soupy wet sand out and the 're mixing it with the dryer sand and rechecking it a few days later. Sometimes it was fine, sometimes I took a brick of e.e. and set it down in the soupy sand and covered it up & waited..Then broke it up in 30 min..this sucked up a lot of water!! Now once a week I stir up my sand from top to bottom back to front ect...just to make sure

[purpleperson]

They wouldn't be able to tip my dishes even if they wanted to haha! They are mostly buried under the sub. (Tupperware) I wish I could get some EE here as that seems to be one of the easier fixes lol


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[Crabber85]

I've got a mix of ee and play sand, heavy on the play sand it makes up two thirds of the mix and it took me forever to find the right ratio of ee to play sand so that I got that nice sandcastle consistency to the mix.

The first time I used ee I made the mistake of hydrating the bricks in a bucket that was much much to small and had an ee volcano on my hands the stuff was spilling out quicker than I could clean it up.lol

It is entirely possible that there was too much water left over from the bricks of ee being hydrated which is why I like to wring out as much of the excess water as possible when I hydrate new bricks this helps to lower the risk of accidentally flooding the bottom of my tank.

[purpleperson]

Yes, I didn't know that wringing them it could help at the time, and I believe I may have used too much water to begin with. The flooding is all at the bottom so I really do think that this is what has gone wrong with time :p


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[pearl29mi]

Oops... Sorry for giving out the wrong info. I saw someone who once had a flood and replaced their sub. Now I know!

[purpleperson]

No prob! Tank is slightly dryer today but still too wet! I ended up moving the crab that Is about to molt to ISO, just in case. at this point I am considering just replacing the sub, to be on the safe side. I don't have many other alternatives.


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