Howdy folks! My name is Josie, and after a bit over a year of crabbing I am looking to add more crababies into our forever home.
I live in Akron, Ohio close to Cuyahoga Falls. I am willing to drive an hour away to adopt crabs, maybe a bit further away depending on the time of day. I can not drive during night-time due to my bad vision, so everything will have to be done before the sun starts to set.
I bought my current crababies in the months of Feb and two more in June of 2015, and have had many successful molts and a lot of growing and research done. I did have one loss last year with my only Ecuadorian who did not survive his first molt after being home for a week, but the 7 others I have now are all healthy and thriving. As I have a tank full of and set for Purple Pinchers, I am looking to adopt more of these. Based on the size-to-gallon chart from HCA, I can more than comfortably fit another 7-10 crabs of similar sizes into our crabitat, including growth spurts. I currently have 2 medium, 4 Small, and 1 teeny in a 65 gallon tank. I would love to add more crababies to our home, but want to adopt rather than buy from a store.
The tank itself is 36''x18''x25'' and sits in a quiet area of the house that gets a lot of indirect sunlight during the day. I use a mix of playsand and EcoEarth coconut fiber as my substrate, and have a small natural moss pit for the crabs to play in. The substrate goes from 13'' deep on one end to 8'' deep at the other. I also have three pools of water, roughly 3'' deep lined with plastic canvas, with the two small ones filled with pure fresh water and the larger one with brackish & lightly slime-coated water. I buy unmodified filtered water (Reiter brand) then treat it myself with the appropriate dechlorinators and such. The diet is largely varied day-to-day, but has often contained a mix of various natural nuts and grains, boiled eggs/shells, shrimp, fruits/veggies off of the safe list from HCA, and Repashy's Beach Buffet hermit crab food. Food is changed daily, water every 2-3 days depending on how dirty it is. I do not have any heating lamps/pads, as I have not needed any yet. The tank stays around 78 degrees F with 80% humidity near the pools, and goes down to around 72 degrees F with 73% humidity at the other end.
I love to spoil my crababies with a lot of climbing objects and new toys, usually every other month. There are lots of baskets, plants, and rope to climb as well as large trees, plants, and caves (both made by me and by the crabs themselves) to hide in. I've found that they love bright flowers, plastic toys, and easily-knocked-over decor, so I try to include that as much as I can. Each addition is thoroughly inspected for possible chipping, if they are too lightweight to climb on, and so on before I even buy them, and the plastic ones I make sure they are made from a solid piece and not painted. I currently have about 20-25 extra shells ranging from 1''- 4'', if anyone desires I can take a more accurate inventory to be sure. My new shells are all bought from MyGANN on Amazon, as I've had nothing but amazing quality from her. I only offer natural shells, usually mother of pearl, and boil them appropriately every week.
For the first month any new crababies would spend with me, they would be in a 10 or 20 gal tank, depending on size and quantity. Since I have these two extra tanks available I can take in new crabs from two different homes at once, but from no more than that until after quarantine. I have extra decor, food/pool dishes, sand, and EcoEarth available to set up these tanks at any time, as well as an extra fund for if new shells need to be bought.
Photos! This one was taken today, as a quick reference to what the crabitat currently looks like.
And here is a link to an album of what the tank looked like in March this year, mostly unchanged besides a new basket and food dish.
http://imgur.com/a/rz2HE
Here are photos as an example of how I've set up the 20gal and the 10gal ISO tanks, respectively, in the past.
If you have any questions or would like to open a discussion about me adopting your crabs, feel free to PM me on here or email me at ResinMae[at]gmail[dot]com. Thank you!
LAST UPDATED: 05/03/16
