HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Yesterday I cleaned out my water dishes and today I found a swarm of bugs in it!!!! There were at least 200 tiny black things in clusters forming a sort of a cloud. I immediately poured the water out and washed the dish thoroughly. I can still see some jumping around in the tank. Since I use eco-earth now, I have no idea how many there are in the tank. These things are really tiny and blackish-green. Does anyone know what these are and if they are harmful to crabs? Also, how can I prevent this in the future? Please help!!!!!!!

Okay, already more bugs are going into the dish again. And I see tons of them on the glass now.

This is a sticky in the Crabitat Conditions forum that Jedidiah wrote over Insects in the Crabitat:

viewtopic.php?t=30282

As long as you don't see the insects actually ON the crabs, they probably aren't the type that prey on living things. However, they're going to be a big nuisance and could stress out the crabs, not to mention keep them from getting water.

For further help, I agree with Hermit, pm Jedidiah. If you have access to a microscope, it might be helpful to capture and kill one of the bugs without smushing it (suffocation, perhaps?) and look at it in order to determine what insect it is so you'll know what to do with it.

You could put a homemade fruit fly trap (describes how in link above) or a yellow sticky trap out of reach of the crabs in there just in case for the time being and see if they are attracted to that. It shouldn't hurt. Just make sure not to use anything with poison or insecticide. You may need to do a deep clean.

Okay, I've identified these things as springtails, they're sort of jumping around in the tank. I did the stupidest thing last night in my panic, I forgot to turn on the heating bulbs. This morning it was like 63 degrees. The crabs seemed okay, but the bugs don't appear to be moving anymore. Then I saw a fruit-fly larvae on my glass moving and squirming around. I'm definitely doing a deep clean.

You can bath your crabs in sea salt water (for salt water fish) before returning them to your clean tank (I use oceanic). You can microwave wood to kill anything and boil all the shells. Good luck.