HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hi :3

A few days ago I had some problems with my one hermit attacking another plus eating a dead comrad...the problem has been resolved by separation and a complete redo of both my main tank and my iso smaller tank.

My big tank is now a small tall 18x18x24 reptile tank with the whole bottom filled with a mixture of playsand and coconut mix with the right dampness of being able to make a sandcastle. It looks pretty nice with all in all, my medium pp and small ruggie + small pp seem to be enjoying themselves crawling everywhere, small ruggie Casper even tried on one of the new shells~ The humidity is resting in the mid to upper 80's, I checked both my dials yesterday before adding them to the tanks.

The problem is my small iso tank's humidity, it has the same mix of coconut + playsand damp to the sandcastle consistency, a saltwater soak dish, fresh water dish, moss and boxing tape on the inside of the screen lid to help keep it humid. I check the humidity gauge before I put it in this tank too but it seems to be hovering more in the mid 60's, since I have everything moist and as recommended I'm not sure what to do past misting the tank more often. My medium ruggie seems to be enjoying her iso tank either way but I'm a tad worried about keeping it humid enough or do you think it's okay?

Hi! Is your gauge calibrated, by chance? Is it analog or digital?

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It's an analog one, I did the salt test to measure and it showed it was about 2% under what it should have read, though I do not see anything on the back to try and adjust it with.
She seems all active and happy though like it nice and humid, sand is still sandcastle damp, salt water and fresh water full plus misted the moss in the tank, Bonnie spent most of the afternoon sitting in the shell food dish munching or climbing up her log.

Okay I have a new problem, still with the ISO small tank. The humidity dial still reads it is lower then it should be, so I've been misting it more ofter, not pouring water in but misting. When I set up the tank the sand was sandcastle consistency but somehow it is almost sandy thick soup now and it concerns me. I never poured a lot of water into the sand and only misted, the only odd things were having to fill up her water dish more often then normal. The dish have no cracks though and has never leaked< i thought maybe the moss next to it sucked up the water. I removed the box tape from the inside of her lid to try and let some of the moisture out but I'm not exactly sure what to do beside dissemble the tank and try to squish out the water from the sand?

Any suggestions or should I go right to squishing the sand.

I don't know about the other problems, and I'm not so sure how well it works since I've never had to try it before, but I read somewhere on here that someone stuck some tampons in the sand to soak up extra water instead of taking everything out, depending on how much water is sitting in there. they say it helps with floods, so it's worth a shot as long as you're not someone who's weirded out by them.

huh tampons, I would not have thought of that but would tampons be safe to use? Idk what stuff that use to make them.
I dug a hole in the sand because when I picked the salt water dish there was standing water in it :/ not sure how that happened. I took Bonnie out and put her in a carry cage just for a while while I get the water out, shes climbing around and munching on a walnut so I guess she doesn't mind much.

Tampons are sterile cotton.


Zoo mom of 3 cats, a dog, a fish and 3 crabs

meg_and_the_zoo wrote:Tampons are sterile cotton

And/or rayon. Though some are 100% cotton.


As long as the substrate is healthy (isn't swampy smelling) you can add in more, dry substrate to get the right consistency. I've seen others mention sticking broken pieces of cocofiber brick (still dry) in to suck up excess water. Another option is paper towels, which much like the tampon idea, would be removed after they're saturated. Probably obvious, but I would say your hygrometer isn't working properly.

If the dish isn't leaking, it's possible the substrate or moss got pushed up on the edge and has been wicking water out of the dish into the substrate. This is pretty common with dishes that are sunk down into the substrate.

I think shoving dry cocofiber brick pieces in is the most cost effective and crab safe, honestly. For all of us persons who have monthly cycles, we know how much tampons can be, and you would probably need a lot to absorb that much moisture.
Since you don't have to discard the eco earth like you would paper towels or other products, it's also more "earth friendly".

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