My tank and new to crabbing!

[Starlight]

I hope I posted this in the write section, but i didn't know where else to posted. Just wanted to kind of introduce myself and I had a few questions as well.

This will be a very long post..

Well last, week my fish tank crashed, for the third time. I had been fighting with that tank ever since I bought it almost 2 years ago. So I decided to give up the fish, and after thinking, decided to instead of just wasting the tank and store it in the garage, i decided to turn it into a hermit crab tank! I owned hermit crabs YEARS ago. I was only a kid and I don't really remember much of them(other than I freaked out once when I picked up one of the hermit crabs and it fell out the shell! Though, now I cant remember whether it was dead, or molting) So its been a super long time since vie had hermit crabs. I have been reading all kinds of sites, including this one, and i have learned a lot, though its a little overwhelming all the things that these little creatures need!

Anyway, so I spent last Saterday all day taking down my fish tank, taking everything out of it, packing it all up. It was an all day event pretty much. Sunday i went to petsmart to pick up the stuff to set up for the hermit crabs.

I have a 26 gallon tank. I do not know the exact measurements off hand..

For substrate I used two types. For the majority of the tank, I used zoo med eco earth. and the other I used Estes Rep Terra sand.( i didn't get this from petsmart, I bought the substrate from a nearby small pet store.) It is about 2 1/2 to 3 inches deep.

For heating, it was tricky for me. My room has an AC unit that i use at night because I sleep much better when im cold. I keep it set on 62, and during the summer or warner weather(I live in Louisiana so unfortunately it never gets freezing. This years winter exp. has SUCKED. We didn't even have a winter at all!) But on the rare occasions where it drops to 30 or below here, I still have my AV unit on all night and my room at the lowest sometimes dropped to 45* ( I was in Heaven lol! I have no heat tolerance at all and love winter if you cant tell lol) So I bought a zoo med heating mad that you can stick onto the tank, I bought a large on of those and I stuck in on the left side outside of the tank and I also bought a heated rock cave that the crabs can use as a hideout, and I knew that would also help keep the heat up. Well the first night(Sunday night) was the first test, and when I got up in the morning, I saw the temp had dropped from where it stayed steady at 74* during the day, it had dropped to 68* at night. So I bought another small zoo med side tank heater to use just during the night, and id keep that one off during the day where I wouldn't need as much heat. I stuck that one a little higher on the tank (on outside) and the next night the temp. dropped only to 70* So I think that will work out.

Im having a little trouble with humidity the past couple of days though. it keeps dropping to about 65% so today I have had to mist a couple of times to boost it up, but it would just streadly go down. So tomorrow im probably going to petsmart and pick up some moss. I have read on here that its good to use to boost humidity

Food and salt wise. at pet smart I bought zoo med hermit crab food, zoo med crab fruit salad and HBH hermit crab cookies.For salt I bought the hermit crab sea salt. After reading things on here, I am no longer going to us the hermit crab food from zoo med and when I go to pet smart im going to pick up some instant ocean sea salt. I have a few questions though,

For the hermit crab cookies (HBH brand) the ingredients list: wheat flour, fructose, carrot powder, glycerin, soybean oil, Glucoco-delta-lactone, vanilla flavoring, rosemary extract, natural mixed tocopherols (preservative) citric acid.

The hermit crab fruit salad ingredients: dried apples, dried cranberries, dehydrated mango

Are those two things safe? I don't see why the fruit salad one wouldn't be, i don't see any preservatives for that..but not sure on the other one.

Now I have read over the list of safe food and how you should provide a variety of diets to the crabs. So I went yesterday and bought a banana, pear, apple and a cucumber and we had carrots at home. So vie been chopping that up and feeding just that the last couple of days(which will lead me to another question in a minute..) My question is, from what i read you should feed something kind of different every day. But its not cheap nor practical to do that. We are not huge fruit eaters or veggie eaters and some things do not stay fresh for long after you cut them open. I don't mind buying the stuff for them, its it going to waste that I don't like. So I was wondering, is it ok to feed the same thing for a little while(like yesterday i chopped and put in small amounts of each carrots, bananas and cucumbers. today I fed carrots, cucumbers bananas and a little bit of pears) then when I run out of that I can go out an by a little bit of other things like tomatoes and zucchini, strawberries etc, go through that then repeat..would that be ok?? I hope that makes sense. Also any tips on things like fruits and veggies on how to keep the fresher for longer once opened?

All this info on molting to has me a little overwhelmed and has me a bit nervous to. I don't know if I have room to put an isolation tank, what it the smallest you can safely use as an iso tank?

Another question, and hopefully my last for now..This past monday my mom went to pick up my hermit crabs. (I got 8 of them, 2 are about the size of a golfball, a couple are medium in size and a couple of smallish size) wouldn't have been able to get them till Friday if not because of where I work(vet clinic) Now I know crabs are nocturnal, but I have barely seen them at all this week. The first two days of having them I took them out and did a head count, then read here that this stresses them out, so now I have not fulled with them at all. I know it take a little while for them to adjust, do you think once they get more comfortable that ill be able to see them a bit more? Right now its kind of boring because I have not been able to see much of them Im also worried about them not eating. I have not seen them eat(except once and thats was when i had that hermit crab food and the fruit salad stuff in the bowl) I have not seen them eat any, or any evidence of them eating, So that has be a little worried.

Here are a few pictures before/after. Please let me know what you think! I think it turned out cute!

This is the tank aftern i finished cleaning it out from the fish..


This is after i added the substrate and a few extra shells i bought. You can see the heading pad on the left


And this is after I got everything I set up. The only thing its missing the the small heating pad I bought, which I placed on the outside right side of the tank and little higher towards the top. The cave on the right is a heated cave. I have 2 "pools" the grey dish in back is the saltwater pool, and other pool in from with the palm tree is the freshwater(though i think im going to have to get a different bowl, i think this one leaks, which sucks because its so cute!) then I gave the two small bowls on the right of that front pool, one is another water dish and the other is for food. At the left of the tank are logs for them to climb on, they have another hide out called "the crab shack" that you cant see in the picture because i used the hide out to prop some of the wood up, they also have a few empty shells to choose from in the corner here to. Im going to have to find some different sized shells since I know about what sizes of them i need now...


Think thats it for now. Im sure ill have other questions, but its super late here and i need to get to bed! Any advice..comments etc will be appreciated. I hope Im doing everything right so far!!

[Purple pinchers]

Well when your first get crabs they need to go threw PPS. So you should have only about a half an inch so they cant dig down. Then once affter a week of haveing PPS they should become much more active and play around. Hermit crabs are realy not nocturnal infact mine are most active in the day then at night.

Now about the sand your useing, i would get arid of the repti sand because most of the repti sands are calcium sand. When calcium sand gets wet if sticks to anything and then harden realy hard. Hermit crabs are known to get stuck inside there shell because of the calcium sand and then die . This is a good sand to use for crabs. http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... catid=7321

The heat cave i would also take out because hermit crabs do not know when to get off something if its to hot. Heat caves are known to go up to above 100 degrees! So if that heat cave gets that high (and they can) the hermit crabs would die of heat. And because crabs are not basking animals they wont realy sit on top for warmth.

Then have you been takeing the temp of the substrait? Because the temp of the ground is more inportaint then the air temp because there always on the ground. The have fish thermomitor that you can just stick down the the substrate.

Great to have you here at HCP

[Starlight]

Can't type much because I'm on my phone. The heat cave is more to help keep the tank warm. They can't get on top of it( I have seen them trying.. They can't grip it that well) so I don't think it will cause any problems with burning them.

Today I bought a bigger dish to use for there saltwater pool.. I'm going to use the grey one I have kn the back as a freshwater pool now and get rid of the pool with the palm tree( if leaks) and put the bigger dish there. I also bought hiwatha)sp?) from michaels
and the instant salt mix from petsmart.

I'll keep an eye out on the sand. I havnt had any problems so far, it's in such a small area it doesn't reslly get wet, they mostly stayed on the left side of the tank anyway.

[Purple pinchers]

Please try to find some other substrate to replace the reptile sand. Because the sand doesnot have to be wet to hurt/kill them. Hermit crabs store water in there shells and breath threw modifide gills. The sand can eather get in there water supplie and harden there (wich would then trap the crab and kill it) Or it could get in there gills and harden there (that would also kill them because they could not breath anymore). You could make the whole tank full of EE like on the left side of the tank?

Sorry about some misspelled words, but my keybord is not working.

[rmbrmb]

To add, you will need an ISO tank. I would deepen the substrate if I were you. As for the heater the best thing Ive used so far was an overhead light. And you WILL need to suplement the hermit crab diet with fresh foods (see http://hermitcrabcuisine.com/) Also be sure to be well read on what type of crab your getting to see what kind of shells you'd need. ( turbos for pp's land snail shells for E's) Lastly replace the hermit crab salt. Instant ocean and other salt brands are less money AND work a whole lot better. BTW beautiful tank!

[Purple pinchers]

Also be sure to be well read on what type of crab your getting to see what kind of shells you'd need. ( turbos for pp's land snail shells for E's)

I like to add all diffrent kinds of shells insted of just one kind to any speacies of crab. Like right now i have 3 PP but insted of giving them all turbos i gave them several diffrent kinds and right now one is in a turbo, one is in a babylonia, and the other is in some other weird looking shell. So Yes most PP like turbos but they should have a large selection of diffrent kinds of shells.

[rmbrmb]

@Purplepinchers
I give mine a varity as well, I was just giving examples of what I've noticed in my tank as favorites. Right now one is in a babylonia, one green turbo and two in whale eyes.

PS (I was looking at your thing and it says you only have one crab mabey you should update that)

[Purple pinchers]

Thanks for reminding me about the crab number. (i always forget to change it )

[arhoads]

my crabs love raisins and that would be a food you could keep on hand and not worry about spoilage. I usually buy mine in bulk (plastic containers), its cheaper and I can see that they are nice and plump instead of horribly dried out like boxed ones sometimes are. Mine also like oranges, if you don't like oranges you can find a grocer that still sells them individually. I just slice it in half and take out a quarter at a time, removing the white stuff so only the pulp is fed. That just seems easier for the crabs. I would break it into pieces as they seem to like carting it off and having several will eliminate fighting.