HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I have to thank everyone on this forum once again for teaching me patience.
As some of you may recall, my sons bought 4 straws before Christmas and we did our very best with information we had to get the little guys into the best home we knew how. Of course now we find that they are tough little buggars to keep in captivity!
When the four disappeared, we read the hermit crab book again and decided they must be molting. A month later I found this forum.
the impeccable advice to be found here is very likely saving the lives of our four little straws.
Steve had popped up after about 3 weeks but went back down two weeks ago and I am guessing he's pulling a back to back molt.
Then Carl came up. He seemed a little groggy the first day, but happily has found all the nice goodies to eat and lovely water dishes and is out and about quite a bit both day and night with cat-naps in between. He finally picked a new shell, I'll have to get a pic the next time I get him in a good pose. He loves to hang in the hanging plants!

Now tonight as I went to get my sons settled into bed I took a peek into the tank and LO!! a new little air hole with the cutest little hermie face in it!

I'm not sure who it is just yet, Bumblebee or Godzilla, it's been so long since we've seen him! I am dying for him to come out. I freshened the food and water dishes. I hope the nice smelly shrimp will draw him out. It's so hard to not lift him out of the hole to check him out. But again....patience.
And now I'm not sure if my eyes are playing tricks on me but I think I see another possible hole forming from below!

Congratulations on all the positive activity from your straws! I still feel like I'm a rookie on straws since I have only had them since August. I think that your approach of just letting them do their own thing and being patient is very good. What temp and humidity do you keep your tank? I try to keep my humidity in the 80% to 83% range and my temp from 77 (at night) to 82 (during the day).

I have the temp at 82 during the day and 78 at night.Using a red night bulb 50w (in a clamp light about 4-6inches above the tank) light on all the time and a standard cfl (no heat) lamp for daylight hours. before I was using a reptile day bulb 40w and it was just a little too warm. Daytime was going upwards of 85 no matter how I adjusted the height. It burned out so I left the red one on until I could get to the store, but found the red bulb was maintaining more consistent temps. I also placed foam insulation board between the tank and the walls (it's on a corner desk)Humidity is 80%-84%. bubblers in both water pools.
I have them in a zoo med habitat that has a vent along the front and plexiglass on top. Conditions are staying very steady. So far no big fluctuations unless of course you open the front door for maintenance, but it goes right back to target levels in a rather short time.
I am consider the tiny fan idea, give them a tiny breeze maybe.

Aha! it's Godzilla! He just emerged fully! Hurray!
So now is it necessary to bathe him or just plop into the saltwater pool?

He'll probably bathe himself, strawberries need more salt water then other crabbies, mine hangs out in the salt water alot (when he was up) He should be fine
Yay! congrats on the strawberry success! Continue to keep us updated, it's awesome! Yay Carl, Steve and Godzilla! (forgot the last one's name )

Bumblebee! So Bumblebee is in fact up and about! Carl seems very happy to see his friends.Godzilla has been shell shopping but no commitment yet. Steve is still under somewhere.
I really want to do a deep clean and get the calci sand out of there! but i don't want to disturb Steve. I was thinking of making half the tank EE and the other half playsand to give the crabbies a choice for the next round of molting. the straws seemed to do well with the EE and the pp's seem to prefer sand. I foresee a very large tank in our future
trying to get the crabbies to pose so will post as soon as I get a clear shot!

Congrats on your successful molts!!

throttlemom wrote:Bumblebee! So Bumblebee is in fact up and about! Carl seems very happy to see his friends.Godzilla has been shell shopping but no commitment yet. Steve is still under somewhere.
I really want to do a deep clean and get the calci sand out of there! but i don't want to disturb Steve. I was thinking of making half the tank EE and the other half playsand to give the crabbies a choice for the next round of molting. the straws seemed to do well with the EE and the pp's seem to prefer sand. I foresee a very large tank in our future
trying to get the crabbies to pose so will post as soon as I get a clear shot!

How interesting I have half sand half EE in my current straw/blue tank, but everyone seems to prefer the sand (I suspect it's because it smells used and the EE smells new :roll: go figure )

interesting...maybe I'm thinking too much like a human and just to sand/EE mix and stop making it harder than I need to?

Well, it's good to have options for them. I read on a poll somewhere the most people's crabs preferred portions of different substrates instead of a mix. I think it's an awesome idea Plus it looks cool you can have a 'beach' area and a 'forest' area
I forgot to mention, a beach area and a forest area is probably alot more natural and more what they're used to. Straws I've heard live right on the sand, but crabs also hang out in the forest area by the sand. So it'd just make more sense and click better in their brains When my big guys come up from molting, I'm moving the water dish into the sand area and more climbeys in the EE area so it makes more sense to them