Cleaning question

[mool]

I have two PP's somewhere between large and jumbo sized. They've been in a 10 gallon for years. I'm upgrading to a 20 gallon.

When changing out substrate, how much of the old do you typically use to seed the new tank? Also how often do you change the substrate?

I've been cleaning mine about once a year and I've been leaving about 25% of the old bedding. This time I want to use all of my old sub and mix it with 3 new bricks of EE and 10-15lbs of sand and then refill both the 10 and 20 gallons with the mixture of probably 2/3 new to 1/3 old.

I'm also noticing that many of y'all use way more sand than Eco Earth. Is this because the sand is less expensive? My ratio is almost the opposite of what I see. For the old 10, I used 1-2 bricks of EE to about 5lbs of sand.

I'm also surprised at how much plastic I see in the tanks. I thought that was a huge no no as it out gasses. My dishes are glass, ceramic or shell and my decor is all natural. The plastic scares me. I don't even put a gauge in my tank because it's plastic.

[CallaLily]

I don't change out the substrate unless it's really funky. I just mix it up really well and top off as needed - about once a year.

If your crabs are large-jumbo, you may really want to consider upgrading to a much larger tank. viewtopic.php?f=26&t=92541

Personally, I find all or mostly cocofiber is harder to keep at the right consistency and it gets nasty quick (again, JMO). Using mostly play sand with some cocofiber added works much better for me and it holds tunnels really well.

I have seen others post with similar concerns with plastic but I haven't noticed any ill effects and haven't read about any either. But if it concerns you, stick to glass or ceramic. Nothing wrong with either of those.

However, gauges are important. You really need to know that the temp and humidity are in correct range for sure - no guessing.

[mool]

I'm not a size expert, and they were really not to cooperative, but here you go!

[Laurie LeAnn]

In all my years of crabbing..I never added old to new. I cleaned the whole tank out. I just swiped it out with paper towels and water then added new substrate. Super cleaning one a year.the only time I added new to old is when I flooded my tank I added a few bricks of e.e. to sand.

[Crabber85]

I've always kept back some of the old substrate to seed the new with as it helps to prevent sterility shock, if you think about like keeping a fish tank cycled by always having some cultured media on hand whether in the filter or physical objects in the tank then substrate in a hermitcrab tank can be considered the physical media and keeping some back every time you do a substrate change will ensure that the beneficial bacteria maintain a good presence in the enclosure.

I typically keep back about a two inch layer of the old substrate to seed the new with but over the last five years I haven't actually done a full substrate change instead I've been experimenting with scraping the first inch or so off the top and replacing that and mixing well and so far it seems to be working better than changing out the majority of the substrate on a regular basis.

For a ten gallon aquarium the general rule of thumb is to remove eighty percent of the existing substrate once every four months or so because the small volume of substrate just doesn't allow for the same kind of long term use as thirty gallon or above.

The smaller the volume of substrate the quicker the harmful bacteria will colonize it and the quicker it will become polluted, in my forty gallon breeder the volume of substrate that it holds allows for a greater degree of flexibility when pushing the limits on how long to go between changes.

My existing substrate is four years old and it smells just as fresh and clean as it did when it was new and that is because I do regular weekly surface cleanings to scrape off and remove fecal matter, old food and other pollutants, if your doing these regular surface cleanings and keeping on top of replacing some of the substrate once every couple of months then you shouldn't have to replace all of it at any given time as your constantly introducing new fresh sub on a regular rate.

As for the plastics issue I have always used plastic in my hermitcrab enclosure and never had a problem with my crabs getting sick though I know there are certain plastics that are harmful in general which I steer clear of.

Plastics that off gas typically only do so under direct heat like in the microwave which is why they aren't good to cook in but the plastics that are used in reptile food dishes and temp/humidity gauges don't have that problem because they are not designed the same way they don't use the same hardening agents.

I would love to be able to use ceramic or glass dishes but with the climbing antics that my group likes to get up to and all the subsequent falls I'm afraid that they'd end up shattering a glass or ceramic dish.

[cRABB3R&w[]FE]

As long as we are talking about virgin plastic that is food grade, or any plastics with recycling number 2 and lower are considered for grade, at least that's what I have been told by one of my plastic thermo mold distributor's

Sent from my Z970 using Tapatalk