HCA: Hermit Crab Association

In my 10 gallon tank. I have 3 crabs in the rn. But the humidity will not stay up at all. I have a bubbler in there. I just can't figure out how to keep it at a good range. It's in the 40s rn... and the sand is not sand castle consistency, I have molting crabs in there rn. Is there any way I can get it to the correct consistency without disturbing them or flooding the tank?



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Moss is a great way to add humidity though my mason source of humidity is sand castle consistency :/


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If you poke a chopstick or straw all the way down to th3 bottom of the tank, does the hole collapse or stay?

What kind of hydrometer do you have? Is it analog or digital? Is your lid open or sealed? Is your air dry in your home?

If your substrate is dry all the way through and you are afraid molting caves have collapsed, you will have to decide whether you want to dig or not.

If you haven't, calibrate your guage, make sure the lid is sealed, and if you have air conditioned air or very dry air in your home, pumping it into the crabitat can make your humidity drop.

soilentgringa wrote:If you poke a chopstick or straw all the way down to th3 bottom of the tank, does the hole collapse or stay?

What kind of hydrometer do you have? Is it analog or digital? Is your lid open or sealed? Is your air dry in your home?

If your substrate is dry all the way through and you are afraid molting caves have collapsed, you will have to decide whether you want to dig or not.

If you haven't, calibrate your guage, make sure the lid is sealed, and if you have air conditioned air or very dry air in your home, pumping it into the crabitat can make your humidity drop.

I did the straw. It collapsed. My hygrometer is a digital Acurite. And the air in my house isn't dry. The lid for the tank is sealed also

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Okay. The hygrometer needs to be calibrated whether it is digital or not.

To do this you take a bottlecap or small plastic lid and pour about a tablespoon of salt on it. Table salt is fine. Moisten the salt until it is about sandcastle consistency. You don't want it to drip. Place the hydrometer and salt in a ziploc bag and leave it for at least 8 hours. It should read 75%. If it does not, the gauge is off.

You may want to very carefully dig the crabs up and correct your substrate consistency.

It is odd that a 10 gallon tank with a bubbler would be so dry. Hopefully fixing the sub will help.

soilentgringa wrote:Okay. The hygrometer needs to be calibrated whether it is digital or not.

To do this you take a bottlecap or small plastic lid and pour about a tablespoon of salt on it. Table salt is fine. Moisten the salt until it is about sandcastle consistency. You don't want it to drip. Place the hydrometer and salt in a ziploc bag and leave it for at least 8 hours. It should read 75%. If it does not, the gauge is off.

You may want to very carefully dig the crabs up and correct your substrate consistency.

It is odd that a 10 gallon tank with a bubbler would be so dry. Hopefully fixing the sub will help.

I dug them up. One crab died I think. I only found two live crabs. But there was a lot of body parts and an empty Shell. I think he was eaten? But I will correct the substrate and calibrate the hygrometer again.

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Is the shell empty or is there a soft freshly molted crab in there? I am so sorry, if it is just an empty shell and parts he may have passed during a molt before he could eat his exo.

*hugs* I know this is frustrating and I am not trying to bombard you, just want to help figure out what happened so it can be corrected.

soilentgringa wrote:Is the shell empty or is there a soft freshly molted crab in there? I am so sorry, if it is just an empty shell and parts he may have passed during a molt before he could eat his exo.

*hugs* I know this is frustrating and I am not trying to bombard you, just want to help figure out what happened so it can be corrected.

Empty shell. No crab to be found

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soilentgringa wrote:Is the shell empty or is there a soft freshly molted crab in there? I am so sorry, if it is just an empty shell and parts he may have passed during a molt before he could eat his exo.

*hugs* I know this is frustrating and I am not trying to bombard you, just want to help figure out what happened so it can be corrected.

So I calibrated the hygrometers. I have two. One was at 70% and one was at 77%. How do fix it

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Some analog hygrometers have a little screw on the back that you can turn to adjust. Some don't. For those that don't and digital ones, just take note of how much they're off and add/substract with every reading.