Cleaning day!
We noticed when we got back from our Christmas trip to Montana that the crab tank was in need of some attention, so we got to it today. The crab tank is looking great after everything was sifted through, cleaned and rearranged. We even gave the crabs baths before we put them back in their tank, as we were certain at least one was fairly recently molted (though with no exo around anymore). We've never done the mass bathing before (usually we just dunk newbies and iso molters in the water dish when introducing them to the main tank). The only crab I think enjoyed it was Coconut, one of our strawberry hermit crabs.
We only had one pinch the whole time, our smallest crab, Ghost (a white ruggie) nipped my finger when I took him from the bathing pool to the main tank. Poor little dude was pretty scared.
We did interrupt three molters though :( I knew we would interrupt at least one when we started, and by #3, I was praying for no more! We only have three spare tanks!
Right now General Lee (large PP), Lacky (med straw), and Legolas(small ruggie) are in ISO. General Lee is the only one I'm really worried about. He's been under for a few months, and all that time must have been preparing to molt, because he'd eaten hardly any of his exo.
The first one we found, Legolas, we put in our KK. He was missing two legs when we bought him, so hopefully he'll regenerate some of those. We found Lacky second and we put him in our 10 gallon tank. The last one we found was the General - and the poor guy was relegated to some tupperware until we got all the other crabs out of the 20GL tank. We ended up putting the KK inside the 20 gallon, because it doesn't have a heat source of its own, and those things don't hold humidity at all well.
We should only have to disturb the molters one more time for today, to give them food and water. I hope I have enough water dishes to give them each fresh and salt! (maybe, if I use some shallow dishes)
Then, a sheet goes over their tanks until time to check on them tomorrow so it stays nice and dim.
We only had one pinch the whole time, our smallest crab, Ghost (a white ruggie) nipped my finger when I took him from the bathing pool to the main tank. Poor little dude was pretty scared.
We did interrupt three molters though :( I knew we would interrupt at least one when we started, and by #3, I was praying for no more! We only have three spare tanks!
Right now General Lee (large PP), Lacky (med straw), and Legolas(small ruggie) are in ISO. General Lee is the only one I'm really worried about. He's been under for a few months, and all that time must have been preparing to molt, because he'd eaten hardly any of his exo.
The first one we found, Legolas, we put in our KK. He was missing two legs when we bought him, so hopefully he'll regenerate some of those. We found Lacky second and we put him in our 10 gallon tank. The last one we found was the General - and the poor guy was relegated to some tupperware until we got all the other crabs out of the 20GL tank. We ended up putting the KK inside the 20 gallon, because it doesn't have a heat source of its own, and those things don't hold humidity at all well.
We should only have to disturb the molters one more time for today, to give them food and water. I hope I have enough water dishes to give them each fresh and salt! (maybe, if I use some shallow dishes)
Then, a sheet goes over their tanks until time to check on them tomorrow so it stays nice and dim.
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