How to stop lid climbing?
Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 9:39 pm
The setup I have closes heat and humidity into the tank with an aquarium lid. Unfortunately, a few of my crabs are obsessive climbers and have a habit of getting themselves stuck on various parts of the lid's underside until they eventually lose their grip and fall. This used to be a somewhat rare occurrence but a rearrangement of the climb-friendly scenery has made it much easier to reach than before.
My largest crab does this many times a day, climbing to the lid and falling off of it two or three times an hour. This has happened at least occasionally for the 3+ years I've had this crab. But since it has become a constant behavior, I have started to notice injuries: a leg with a broken tip, a shortened antenna, a few lighter-colored crack-shaped marks visible on the exoskeleton which may or may not be damage. So I'm starting to get pretty concerned. I fear that if this continues forever then eventually this crab will seriously injure itself.
Changing the arrangement of said climbing scenery could disrupt molters, as it is anchored deeply in the substrate, all the way to the bottom for some pieces. Moreover, my tank is not tall enough to even have shell/moss baskets lower than lid-reaching distance unless they are impractically close to the substrate.
I am at a loss as to how I might fix this problem. My only idea so far is to hang a net or some similar thing across the top of the tank, but that would block the lid's built-in light and probably just make it that much easier to climb to...
My largest crab does this many times a day, climbing to the lid and falling off of it two or three times an hour. This has happened at least occasionally for the 3+ years I've had this crab. But since it has become a constant behavior, I have started to notice injuries: a leg with a broken tip, a shortened antenna, a few lighter-colored crack-shaped marks visible on the exoskeleton which may or may not be damage. So I'm starting to get pretty concerned. I fear that if this continues forever then eventually this crab will seriously injure itself.
Changing the arrangement of said climbing scenery could disrupt molters, as it is anchored deeply in the substrate, all the way to the bottom for some pieces. Moreover, my tank is not tall enough to even have shell/moss baskets lower than lid-reaching distance unless they are impractically close to the substrate.
I am at a loss as to how I might fix this problem. My only idea so far is to hang a net or some similar thing across the top of the tank, but that would block the lid's built-in light and probably just make it that much easier to climb to...