The Acrobatic E

I told Mike when I bought the screen lid for our tank that soon we would have crabs crawling along on the screen top of the tank... and today, we do!

The little E who prompted the screen lid purchase with his near escape is now wandering around in his new upside down playland.

He was up there napping when we got home from work today, and is crawling around now.

Not sure how he's planning to get down!

The Underground Railroad Rides Again

Yeah, this afternoon we had a crabby underground railroad running through our tank. Mike got home today to find one of the little e's had escaped and was on the top of the tank!



We assume he climbed up the air hose (which comes out of the back of the tank) and inched his way around to the front of the tank where the lid was cracked open for circulation.

You know, this route (one of the ruggies was on the way to join him):



We don't think we have any other escapees. We hope. So anyhow, after work today I stopped and picked up a screen top at Petco, so now we have a screen under our glass lid so that not even our smallest crabs can squeeze out. We may, however, find crabbies hanging from their ceiling in the not too distant future!

In sadder news, Coconut, our more active strawberry crab, passed away last night. We're not sure what happened, really. He had had mites, so it's possible he died from the residual effects of that. :(

I haven't decided yet whether we should start hunting for a new strawberry to keep Lacky company or whether we should just leave things as they are. We haven't seen strawberries in the stores now for several months anyhow, so that choice may be made for us.

RIP Coco.

Mayfair, the new Presto?

Mayfair has now changed into a tapestry turbo, one which is far too small for him. He seems to like it though!

Neo and Mayfair settle in

Neo has since changed into a green turbo and changed back into the turbo he chose first. He must be overwhelmed with having a choice of shells now...

As for Mayfair, he has changed into a large gold mouth turbo, he did come out for something to eat but as soon as he saw me walk by he ran away. Seems a bit on the shy side, can't say the same about Neo! He is far from shy :)

Newbies

We went to Petco today and found a couple of new hermit crabs! Both PPs, one on the smaller side of medium and one I'd say is probably on the smaller side of large.

The little one is named Neo and the big one is named Mayfair. No pictures yet, maybe I can bribe Mike to take some later.

Neo's first action was to change into a turbo from his painted shell. While he was switching our little white ruggie, ghost, came up and bit him on his abdomen! We're hoping he's alright, he got in his new shell soon after and he seems to be acting normal.

The other crab ran straight into a cave and didn't come out for ages.

Silly Crabbies...

I'm not sure why, but lately in the crab tank we've caught them sitting on each. Little ones on big ones, big ones on little ones... it's just constant lately. Weird crabs. :)

On a completely unrelated note, today we bought cherries at the grocery store, and I bit into one to make it easy to access and put it in the food dish. Lacky, one of our strawberries, was concentrating so hard on eating it that he toppeled backwards out of the food dish into a hole another crab had made and vacated. Lacky wasn't bothered. The cherry was still in his claws, so he kept eating! I watched him eating upside down for a good minute before he scrambled back to his feet. So cute!

Naptime

Last night we went to the late showing of Mission: Impossible III (not awful, not movie of the year), and when we came home...



That's Lacky, one of our largish medium straws, having a nap (apparently) on TOP of one of Ghost, one of our small ruggies. Luckily Ghost didn't seem to mind the imposition. He appeared to be napping too. ;)

In other news, we finally caught a shot of one of our camera shy crabbies, Doogal!



We also finally named the remaining PetSmart crab Nipper. I haven't seen that one since the last time we cleaned, I hope he made it through the mites OK.

The Strawberry Wonder

Hermit crabs really amaze me. As I type I'm sitting here watching Lacky, one of our strawberry hermit crabs hanging by one leg off the top branch of one of the wooden "trees" we have in their tank, reaching desperately for a nearby plastic plant (which I doubt will hold his weight very well, but they always seem to manage to hold on).

He got it though, and the branch only "fell" a little under his weight. Now it's on to the next plastic plant in line, one of those terrarium plants that already comes with suction cups attached.

The crabs do this for hours, back and forth. From plastic plant to plastic plant, up the trees and across to more plastic plants. If they choose their route well even the smallest can make it across.

It just always amazes me how agile land hermit crabs are climbing. You wouldn't think it to look at them, but I guess there's a reason they call them tree crabs.

We cleaned up a little in the crab tank (it needed it!) and set the bubble pools back up again tonight. Something's weird with the air stones though, or the hose has a hole in it or something. The bubbles just aren't as bubbly as the last time we had it up and we really aren't sure why.

We put Coconut (strawberry) in the salt water with the bubbler on as a test, and he stayed under water forever - the longest I've ever seen a crab stay submerged. He really enjoyed himself!

Yesterday I bought the crabs a mango at the grocery store, so today they had smelt a la mango (or raw smelt on a bed of mango... sounds better the first way!) garnished with a dallop of tahini and a dallop of thawed coconut milk (and sprinked with rose petals and Julia Crab's Epicurean Hermit Crab Cuisine). I froze the rest of the mango for later.

Coco's the only one I've seen in the food dish so far, but he's always first, and I see a white ruggie on his way to get in on the action even now.