Been wondering

[emmac350]

Okay, I know I've done lots of posts with questions recently, but I have heard some crabbers say that when they're on vacation or whatever, they use self-watering bowls to ensure their crabs have water the whole time. What brand are they? I'm curious on how they work for your crabs, how big the bowls are, how much room they take up in the tank, how deep they are, etc.

Thanks!

[ladybug15057]

I use the reptile reservoirs when we go for a few days. Some I have got smooth sides so I did put velcro on the outside of the basin part in a few places to give the smaller hermies something to grip on to get into the pond area. The others I have do have the rougher sides, but still a bit slick so I have pieces on velcro on the outside of these too. I got mine between PetSmart and Petco. (got as many as I could at PetSmart, they were less expensive than Petco)

http://www.petdiscounters.com/c14/c11/R ... p3781.html

This is like the smooth ones I got

http://www.petdiscounters.com/c14/c11/R ... p7189.html

I have the shorter water 'tube' that I used for ocean water so I knew it was ocean water. (made it easier for the hermie sitter too when we went away for a week. About day 4 I had them change all the water our just in case)
Don't let the smaller tube fool ya though, the actual 'base' is the same size.
To hopefully keep the water fresher, I used glass craft stone in the bottom of the pond area to make sure the little ones could get out.

[emmac350]

Thanks!

[ladybug15057]

If you buy them at the pet store, make sure to check that the little screen at the bottom of the bottle is still there.

[CrabbyJo]

I just picked up some cheapie ones at the grocery store in the pet section - smooth sides, so I put them into the sand so it was almost level with the top, and put some pebbles in so the smaller crabs could get out. The bases were just rectangular. Took up a lot of floor space, but I was very content that they would be fine for the 5 days I expected to be gone.