HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello, I am fairly new to having hermit crabs; I have 4 and provide an ideal environment for them to live in (Large Tank, Deep Substrate, Fresh Food, etc.).

A few weeks ago, I found these "White Dots" in large bundles floating around in my two water basins. These white dots seek to bundle into the corners of the water and they appear to be eggs of some sort. I have looked at the following post: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=92537 to see if I can identify what they are, but I can't identify them. Upon first discovery of these dots a few weeks ago, I cleaned out my water basins completely and they were gone for awhile. They returned earlier this week and I am quite worried.

I does anybody have any suggestions on what to do? (I have one crab molting at the moment)



Note: If requested, I can provide pictures.

Please provide pictures. That would help most of all.


Crabbers unite!!!

Food mites? There's photos of them floating in a water dish in the mite faq: http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... hp?t=92530

Take into account that those images are heavily zoomed. To the naked eye, they look like floating sugar crystals.

I will post pictures soon, but from the looks of it; food mites look like the right answer! I did see some crawling on a tiny piece of fruit someone hid in the back when I first noticed the dots in the water.

Sounds like food mites to me too. They're difficult to see so you often don't notice them until they swarm a bit of food or end up in the water dish. They're harmless to you and the crabs. I find removing fresh foods right away in the morning (or switching to dry foods for a time), frequent water changes, scooping the surface of the sub where they've been swarming, and wiping down the glass daily (I tend to see them there too when there's a lot of them) really helps to keep their numbers down. Eventually they just seem to go away but do always tend to pop up again down the road.

Sorry for no pictures! It's been almost half a month now and they don't seem to be coming back ever since I began changing the water more frequently. I can confirm that they were food mites. They never seemed to emerge out of the water or the food, never on the glass or elsewhere.