I haven't updated for about a week now, I think. I've been putting it off.
Monday night, we did a much needed deep clean on the tank. When we had finished cleaning out the substrate, we found the remains of our first hermit crab, Sonic, who both Mike and I were/are very attached to. His is the first death we've had that was not related to PPS. We've never had one make it more than a month with us and then die. :( As nearly as we can tell, it was a bad molt. There was very little of him left, so I don't know whether it was a cannibalism problem or whether the coconut fiber was just that effective at breaking down the corpse.
We were understandably very panicky after we finished going through substrate when we noticed there was another crab missing as well. It was one of the small white ruggies, Dougal, though we did find his exoskeleton mostly intact. So, as we were putting shells back into the tank, we were searching desperately to see if he had just molted and was jammed so far back in a shell that we couldn't really see him.
We looked in all the shells the right size with no luck. We thought for sure he'd fallen prey to some crabby cannibal in his softened state. And then Mike noticed a "spare" shell he'd just put in the tank attempting to move. A spare shell whose opening was as large as the shell Dougal had previously been in.
Sure enough. Dougal was alive.
Into iso he went, with his exo and lots of shells the right size. He still hasn't changed shells. I'm very worried about him exhausting himself trying to move around in that thing, but he has been slowly eating some of his exo. So there's hope.
Monday night we also bought two hermit crabs at PetSmart (which is new here), who we've rarely seen since. They have been eating though, so they must just be 'fraidy cats and coming up when we're sleeping. I have them in iso as well since the day we bought them was cleaning day and I didn't want to put them through the stress of meeting all the new crabs in the rubbermaid I keep them in when the tank is being cleaned. We haven't named them since we've hardly seen them, but they are both PPs.
Since then, not too much exciting has gone on, other than that we broke the air stones trying to take them out of the tubing (apparently, that's not a good idea), so we need to get some more of them if we're going to have bubbles in the water.
We found out that the crabs are big fans of the banana, coconut, and crushed mixed nuts combo, and that they like blueberries. :)
Monday night, we did a much needed deep clean on the tank. When we had finished cleaning out the substrate, we found the remains of our first hermit crab, Sonic, who both Mike and I were/are very attached to. His is the first death we've had that was not related to PPS. We've never had one make it more than a month with us and then die. :( As nearly as we can tell, it was a bad molt. There was very little of him left, so I don't know whether it was a cannibalism problem or whether the coconut fiber was just that effective at breaking down the corpse.
We were understandably very panicky after we finished going through substrate when we noticed there was another crab missing as well. It was one of the small white ruggies, Dougal, though we did find his exoskeleton mostly intact. So, as we were putting shells back into the tank, we were searching desperately to see if he had just molted and was jammed so far back in a shell that we couldn't really see him.
We looked in all the shells the right size with no luck. We thought for sure he'd fallen prey to some crabby cannibal in his softened state. And then Mike noticed a "spare" shell he'd just put in the tank attempting to move. A spare shell whose opening was as large as the shell Dougal had previously been in.
Sure enough. Dougal was alive.
Into iso he went, with his exo and lots of shells the right size. He still hasn't changed shells. I'm very worried about him exhausting himself trying to move around in that thing, but he has been slowly eating some of his exo. So there's hope.
Monday night we also bought two hermit crabs at PetSmart (which is new here), who we've rarely seen since. They have been eating though, so they must just be 'fraidy cats and coming up when we're sleeping. I have them in iso as well since the day we bought them was cleaning day and I didn't want to put them through the stress of meeting all the new crabs in the rubbermaid I keep them in when the tank is being cleaned. We haven't named them since we've hardly seen them, but they are both PPs.
Since then, not too much exciting has gone on, other than that we broke the air stones trying to take them out of the tubing (apparently, that's not a good idea), so we need to get some more of them if we're going to have bubbles in the water.
We found out that the crabs are big fans of the banana, coconut, and crushed mixed nuts combo, and that they like blueberries. :)
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