Bedding from petco

[llmercll]

Hey everyone I'm new to crabbing. My brother brought home a new hermit crab from NC and did some research on them the following day. Basically, I found out the crab is living in terrible conditions so decided to save it.

I did a lot of reading and found out that coconut fibre or sand is the best substrate to use. Problem is I can't order online and petco only had natural 'desert' sand and EE coconut fiber(but not a disc, and actual bag). I remember looking on hermitcrab patch and seeing that the substrate they sell is a mix of Florida sand and coconut fibre, so I got both with the intention on mixing them together.

http://www.hermitcrabpatch.com/Hermit-C ... /sb030.htm

I want to know if anyone recommends against this, as I see nothing on this site about mixing the two. And what ratio I should use. 1:1? 2:1? In any case, I should take a spray bottle with distilled "marine salt" water and wet the sand to a sand castle consistency yeah?

Any advice would be appreciated, the crab is pretty bad shape living in a small "cage" with about 1cm of calcified sand =(

[llmercll]

OK, I did a little searching on here and found that the desert sand is NOT good because it can cave in on the crabs. not good =(

I called up petco and she told me they didn't have any argonite sand or regular beach sand, but that lowes/home depot has a natural, sterilized beach sand that shes used for lizards with success.
either beach sand or playbox sand, in either case they are both safe, yeah? Although I might want to run a magnet through it for metal.

[vckums]

I've used play sand and beach sand for 4 years now. Make sure the bag is dry, no puncture marks, and you might want to sift it the first time you use it. I don't bake my sand. Once I do a deep clean the sand gets tossed out and new sand goes in.

As for mixing it's whatever you prefer. Do you want more sand then fiber or vice versa. I've never seen coco fiber in a bag except in chunk form, and that wouldn't be good for the hermit crabs. Do you have any other pet stores around? They might carry it in disc or brick form.

[llmercll]

well thats good to hear. this is what i ended up getting.

http://images.lowes.com/product/039645/039645962510.jpg
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=p ... lpage=none

looks pretty good right? says its very clean and used in aquariums. mix that with some eco earth and i should be good to go?

EDIT** I did some more reading here http://crabbywiki.com/tiki-index.php?pa ... Substrates

Looks like there is no safe substrate for hermit crabs =p except of course aragonite sand which my local petco doesn't have.

what ratio should i mix it in? anyone know? and for wetting should i use salt water or fresh?

[emmac350]

With any sort of coconut fiber, you want to use ocean water mixed with a saltwater aquarium water mix with a strength of at least half strength (based on the instructions). I've been playing around with how much salt water you need to use to avoid mold on the coconut fiber as mold is a big problem here in the SE of the USA. I've been using half ocean water and half fresh water for keeping my coconut fiber wet and have not had any problems with it in 4 months now (using only fresh, I had mold in a week in my ISO).

As for the chunky coconut fiber, I have a chunky coconut fiber. Every time I re-wet it I break up the chunks as much as possible, but my crabs burrow in it and even molt in it almost more than they do my aragonite sand right now.

As for the sand you found, it should be okay as an in between until you find a better sand. I would wash it and bake it (30 minutes at 350 degrees, stirring it around at least twice during that time) because it is a hardware store purchase and I've never seen a bag of sand from our stores that doesn't have a hole in it to allow bugs and other nasty stuff in. Alternatively, you don't need to have sand - lots of people have only EE as a substrate and have had no problems with it.

[llmercll]

ok so def sea salt spray at first. but what about when i re moisten? is it best to use freshwater? will too much saltwater spray harm the crab?

[ladybug15057]

The sand you have in the links above from lowes should not be used at all in a crabitat. That is not play sand even, it is a commercial sand made for concrete.
The link to the play sand on Crabby Wiki you have above is from pictures I had permission from inland reef to use and the last one is of the Quickrete play sand variety of their sand. You saw some of the impurities in that picture, the commercial sand would have a lot more.

[llmercll]

damn, I went with that over the playsand because of what this site says, and fact it said aquarium safe...

http://www.hermitcrabpatch.com/Hermit-C ... -a/133.htm

Well, I'm on the hunt for some aroginte sand either way. hopefully a month or 2 of this wont seriously harm my hermies. It's mixed with coco fiber so i hope that makes up for something.

Funny thing is when we put him in his new crabitat he ran right into the hollowed out half stump and he's still in there. I hope thats normal

[emmac350]

Big changes in a tank will stress the crabs out a little bit. So a complete substrate change, while highly necessary at times, will freak the crabs out a bit. It'd be like coming home from school and finding your house laid out completely differently, with new furniture and carpet and such. Just give him a week or so to get used to his surroundings and he should be fine!

[llmercll]

I hope you're right, I'm kinda worried becuase this morning I don't see him anywhere. He couldn't have gotten out because I had weights on the lid, but I heard him digging around last night. Do they ever dig for fun, or besides molting? or does this mean my crab has been desperately needing to molt for awhile now and he got right to it? Looks he look he took his shell with him underground lol

here are some pics of my crabitat, let me know what you think. any advice/suggestions are welcome =p





I also need to get the humidity up about 10% or so, besides spraying and a sponge not sure what else I can do