aussieJJDude wrote:Thats interesting, its pretty much a direct translation from english!
I guess it depends on whether you have read about them or not.
I find it amazing on how they rather obscure, when there's other countries in the europe - most notably Germany - that have a notable "population" of hermit crab keepers!
Well, everything in this country tends to take an exceedingly long time to catch up to the rest of the world or even just Europe. I expect hermit crabs will be much more well-known and widespread as pets in 10 or 15 years, like what happened to reptiles in recent times. Not only do I suspect I'm one of only a handful of hermit keepers in the whole country, there's no specialization in the trade either. When I went shopping for supplies, I always had to look for half the stuff I needed under reptiles and the other half under aquarium fish. I envy the state of things in North America (and elsewhere, I presume) where one can just order homemade hermit food and shells and whatnot online, instead of ordering shells sight unseen from the only place I could find them, a Spanish candlemaking supplies company...
The aquarium trade thrives well enough here, but most people in that hobby have probably never considered or don't know how to keep invertebrates, just fish. Only now do I see a few species of shrimp popping up for sale here and there, but always in the back of pet stores, never very prominently displayed. You will however find bags of dog and cat feed stacked to the roof in any store you visit, so I think it's fair to say people in Portugal are still very much stuck in a binary cat-or-dog state of mind. Birds come in a solid third place, with fish in fourth, I'd say, and everything else is a crapshoot depending on the region and which store you visit. Loads of those little plastic turtle tanks with the palm tree, not an UTH or ExoTerra substrate or decent food dish in sight. I am fortunate enough to live near a place that actually sells frozen food (it's where I get the bloodworms for my crabs) and hay for my pet rabbit, otherwise I'd be out of luck.
aussieJJDude wrote:Thats ok, using those car thingies are great... I had tinfoil on my tank and it rose by 5c, so those car thingies could easily raise it by 5 or more. Thought you might like it.
Hdale85 wrote:I use this insulating bubble wrap stuff from home depot, it's silver like that car stuff but it's bubble wrap. It actually has an R value but I forget what it is lol. It works really good though. I put some behind the UTH to help keep the heat in the tank.
I don't think - but of course, I could always be wrong and won't know until I get there - that Winter will be as much trouble as Summer, but I'll definitely keep both these ideas in mind!
