Just wanted to make an update on Ollie’s progress; he has successfully molted!
He was kind enough to make his molting chamber right at the bottom of the tank (though it was at a terrible angle for photos) so I was able to make daily checks on him. His molting timeline is as follows:
-Witnessed a large uptick in both saltwater and food consumption from July 14th through the 17th
-Went down on July 18th
-Molted August 15th
-Molt completely consumed August 23rd
-Emerged, fed and consumed both fresh and saltwater August 30th
In total, it took him 28 days from burying himself to begin molting, and 43 days from going down, till re-emergence. Visually, I’d say he’s grown 25/30%, but I’ll give him a while to regain his strength before the next weigh in.
After 3 months of care, I’ve made several behavioral observations, and notable dietary preferences. Thus far, he has proven to be completely nocturnal. Lights are on a timer and go off at 9pm, and he won’t emerge from his network of tunnels until at least 35-45 minutes after lights out. I’m hoping as the years go by and he becomes more accustomed to both captivity and my presence, he’ll start making trips above ground during daylight hours. At the very least it would make photography an heck of a lot easier! All observations are currently made with a red LED headlamp so as not to disturb him. Any white light shining either on or near him causes him to bolt (remarkably fast!) back to one of his tunnels. On the topic of tunnels, he is an absolute bulldozer. Think hermit crab and multiply it 10 fold. He has at least 6 entrances/exits dug throughout the enclosure spanning the entire length, and God only knows how convoluted the network actually becomes underground. He is also constantly rearranging. Tunnel entrances come and go day by day. All said and done, I’m quite pleased with the substrate mix I came up with. It seems to be able to hold all of his burrows with ease, and maintains the 85-90% humidity I’m aiming for.
He has a definite preference for protein, nuts, vegetables and high fat, low processed oils (coconut, salmon, walnut etc.). Fruits, with the exception of shaved coconut and goji berries, are all but ignored. Raw meat with the exception of shellfish is also generally left untouched. “Favorite” food items so far seem to be any kind of shellfish, fish, beef, poultry, pork, dried insects, salmon oil, peanuts, popcorn, kernel corn, peas and dried kelp. I have however noticed that if popcorn is offered, he will tend to single out just that and leave everything else untouched.
I purchased a “mega bundle” of foods from CrabcuisineCo which gives me a great diversity of foods to choose from. Almost everything is a mix of between 15-20 different ingredients. He doesn’t get the same mix more than once every two weeks in order to ensure proper nutrition as well to avoid him picking “favorites” and ignoring other, potentially more nutrient dense foods.
Overall, he’s been an extraordinarily rewarding captive so far. It’s going to be great fun getting to watch him grow and see his individual “personality” start to show.
The photo with the red light is right after he finished his shed, and the other pictures are what I was able to take this morning before the light scared him back down one of his many holes.
Pardon the picture quality. Again, everything I’m doing is in an effort to keep external stressors to an absolute minimum.
