The best part is that I got two of them. The other one was too shy to come out and play today so you’ll just have to imagine this cuteness x two!

price oem soft

This Ecuadorian has just had a bath after coming home from the pet store.

This Ecuadorian is climbing from the hemp bridge into the plastic shower corner unit that is filled with moss. This is a popular hangout spot in my crabitat.

It’s always a sad day when we lose one of our little ones, no matter what the pet. I’d love to proclaim that if you do everything right, get all the equipment, feed all the right foods, that it will never happen to you, but we all know that sadly, that just isn’t true. Even if it is just old age, eventually we will lose one.

I recently lost a hermit crab to PPS. I was really pulling for him but he just didn’t make it. The question then becomes, what do you do with a dead hermit crab.

Well, first and formost, be sure that he is dead. A hermit crab in the middle of a molt can look suspiciously like a dead crab. Even worse, an exoskeleton can look like a dead crab to a new owner and get the whole package thrown out, newly molted crab and all.

Simon sat near the water dish for over two weeks. Even while I was away on holiday he sat there and was alive, if very lethargic, when I returned. I kept a close eye on him when he stopped moving, hoping for a surface molt. At this point the best way to tell if the crab is dead is to use your nose. A dead crab smells like a dead fish and the smell gets progressively worse.

A molting crab can have an odor about it but it does not increase over time. Last night I detected a slightly fishy odor and this morning, it was much stronger and the crab had not moved for 3 days. Sadly, I knew it was time.

The next thing I did may seem strange and really is a personal decision but I placed Simon in a ziploc bag and put him in the freezer. This was to ensure that he was in fact dead. Now, I was already 99.99% sure that he was but if there was even the tiniest chance I would rather have him pass quickly then to wake up underground or in a trashbag. Like I said, this is my choice and something you might opt not to do.

The next issue that you must deal with is the shell. Often you will notice that a crab has died when it falls out of it’s shell completely or dies after leaving its shell on its own. Other crabs die in their shells. For crabs who die in their shells you must decide whether or not you wish to try to salvage the shell. This is totally a personal choice and there is no right answer. I personally do not have the heart to remove a crab from it’s shell after it has died, although the few that I have had the misfortune to lose all were small and the shell was not that valuable. Except one. Clancy, my first jumbo died in his big tapestry turbo. He was so special to me that I could not bear to “de-shell” him before I let him go.

De-shelling is about what you might think. I’m not going to give you a how-to because I’ve never done it but I’m sure that you get the idea. Using some sort of tool you manipulate the crab out of its shell.

Once you have gotten to this point you need to decide how to proceed. You only have a couple of options at your disposal. You can either place your crab into the garbage or bury him. Never flush dead pets down the toilet, you risk introducing bacteria into the water supply. It’s always better to dispose of it some other way. I usually place the dead crab in the garbage. I’ve never been much of a pet-burier.

Losing a pet is never easy, even the tiniest creature has value. How we take care of them in life and in death reflects upon us as caregivers and responsible pet owners.

Fancy took on this whole pecan! Also a nice shot of the plants sprouting in my crabitat.

Last spring I sold a lot of the crabby garden seed packs.  It’s a lot of fun to grow your own safe food for your crabs and they enjoy it too. Last month when I upgraded to the 90 gallon I mixed a variety of seeds in with the top inch of substrate before I put the decorations in. It worked out really well and now that it has been a few weeks you can see that my crabitat has taken on a distictly more “natural” look.

If you want to add seeds to your tank, there are a couple of things that you need to make sure of before starting.

1. The seeds. You need to be careful what type of seeds you are using. They need to be a plant that hermit crabs can safely eat. Some great starter seeds are wheat grass, millet, amaranth, clover, turnip, and bean sprout. Just mix them in with the top layer of your substrate and make sure you’ve got some good light coming into the tank.

2. The quality of the seeds. Some seeds are coated with anti-fungal chemical and germination aids. Make sure that your seeds are organic or are untreated.

And that’s it! It’s just that easy. Plant lots, the crab will eat it quickly. It works better in fiber bedding than it does in sand. If you’ve got a sand tank, you can plant some in a small container of fiber bedding and grow your own little crabby farm, just for their pleasure! I will be selling more seeds this spring, and hopefully will soon have some clover and millet pictures to share!

Name: Fluker’s Gourmet-Style River Shrimp

Ingredients: River Shrimp

Location: Petco

Price: 4.99/1.2 oz can

I was walking through my local Petco when I saw a sign in the reptile section that read “20% off all reptile food”. Yay! So after looking and rejecting much of what was there I came across this can of river shrimp. The ingredient list passed muster. No strange additived, not packed in salt, no preservatives. It peaked my interest so I brought it home with me.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was really surprised when I opened the can to find these tiny shrimp, I guess I expected something much larger and not so vibrantly colored. I placed them in a bowl and placed the bowl into the crabitat. It was pretty much ignored for the first 12 hours or so. The next morning I got up to find the following shrimp party happening and those two are still eating it a day later. I picked them up (much to their chirpy dismay) and saw that between the two of them they had eaten most of it.

Personally I think this is a great addition to the food repetoire, especially those who have a hard time getting fresh meat/protein sources. The shrimp were small and moist even though they were a bit on the expensive side. By freezing the leftovers you could probably stretch this small can over 8 or 10 feedings. It would also be a great offering to pre or post molt crabs as it is high in protein and calcium.

It is a common problem that most new and many experienced crabbers experience during their crab keeping adventure. You get a new crab and after a few days in your tank he becomes listless, he stops acting to protect himself, stops eating, and often will sit in one spot for long periods of time. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a crab suffering from Post Purchase Syndrome. My newest group of four large Ecuadorians though, has produced one of these little guys. I’ve watched and waited as he sits on this shell near my large water pool for the last 5 days. He’s alive but extremely lethargic. My only hope at this point is that he is preparing to molt rather than that he is in the throws of PPS.

Post Purchase Stress/Syndrome happens when a crab has difficulty making the metabolic changes from being in the wild to being in captivity. The majority of PPS deaths occur in tanks that have less than optimal humidity and temperature but it can happen to the most experienced crabber. One important thing to remember is that PPS shouldn’t be used as a catch-all for hermit crab death. PPS is something that happens with the first couple of weeks that you have a new crab. Sometimes a PPS crab will die during its first molt which may take place later, but you simply cannot blame PPS for deaths weeks and months later. If you’ve got unexplained deaths later, stop and reassess your tank for problems.

So what do you do about PPS when it happens to one of your crabs? You will get a LOT of different sorts of answers. Some people will tell you to bath them, mist them, stick them in a dark tank by themselves. None of these things work very well. A crab that has spent a long time in a pet store will benefit from spending time in a tank with lower humidity than is standard, slowly raising it every three days or so. This method was created and tested by Sue Latell from the Conobitae Research Site and you can read that article in it’s entirety here.

Don’t bath a PPS crab or mist them. Don’t place them in a dark isolation tank. The light cycle is very important for all crabs, especially the sick ones, the best thing you can do if you decide to isolate your PPS crab is to provide them with a strong light cycle and a place to hide if they want to get away from the light.

Sometimes the best we can do is watch and wait. That can be the hardest part. At least bathing makes us feel like we are *doing* something, however, it’s the crabs health we need to put first, no matter how fretful we feel.

UPDATE: 12/31/07  The little Ecuadorian that I had taken to calling Simon did not make it. He hung on for a long time and in the end began exhibiting the death smell that got stronger and stronger and I knew that he was gone. Thanks for the good thoughts everyone.

If you’re like me, you are constantly looking for something that will get your crabs to come out from their cave and get excited, well, as excited as a crab can get. A coconut is a treat that will get your crab’s attention and is pretty fun to get ready to serve. I like coconuts because they can be used in three ways. You can serve the meat and the milk and you can make the husks into cocohuts.

Take the coconut and place it in a large, non-breakable bowl. Take the bowl to a hard surface (preferably concrete, like basement or sidewalk). Grab a hammer and tap lightly on the edges of the score line the manufacturer places in the sides of the coconut. It should crack open and the milk should leak out the crack into the bowl. Pry the coconut open and prepare to serve.

You have several options. You can shred some coconut meat and serve it in a dish. You can serve the coconut as is. You can soak it, you can bake it, you can steam it. I like to take a chunk of raw coconut with husk attached and pop it in the microwave. This warms up the coconut oil and releases delicious tropical fragrances. Remember, crabs love things that are smelly. I like to make a depression in the substrate and use the coconut piece as a bowl. I filled this one with shrimp, cuttlefish, and octopus. I place a small amount of coconut milk in a separate shell for them to enjoy. [By the way, that is NarNar’s salsa mix in the background, a HUGE hit!]

After that is all set up I put the leftover milk in a ziploc and freeze it and wrap the coconut remains and freeze them as well. The coconut in the crabitat gets removed after a day or so because it will mold quickly.

To make a cocohut use a dremel or other small hand tool to shape the coconut half after the meat has been scraped out. You can sand off the “hair” or leave it the way it is.

When a person gets hermit crabs one of two thing happens. Either they keep them for awhile and tired of them and eventually pawn them off on friends and neighbors, or they start exhitibiting suspicious behavior. If you’ve spent a day driving around to all the petstores in town . . . . If, when you get there you look at every single crab in their tank . . . . And after that is done if you look at your companion and you both have already silently agreed that you’re going on a roadtrip without further ado to start all over again two towns over . . . . Well, then your a crabaholic.

Crabaholics eventually will start thinking of upgrading their tank. This is why I always suggest a minimum tank starting size of 20 gallons. It gives you some time before you will need to upgrade. Some crabbers will take the big leap and create a colony tank which is any tank that is 50 gallons or larger.

Colony tanks have unique qualities that smaller tank owners don’t face.  They aren’t necessarily more difficult to care for, except when it comes to a deep clean, but you must think about tank maintenance in a different way. In a smaller tank you might have 2-5 crabs that you can recognize by shell and behavior. A colony tank might have anywhere from 20-100 crabs and individual recognition becomes difficult. There are always favorites and ones that are unique enough to stand out and be remembered but you will also have a group of crabs that blend together after 4 or 5 shell changes. I found this a hard transition to make. I like naming crabs and getting to know their personalities. I still have my favorites though

Molting is another issue that colony crab owners must contemplate. Personally, I let my crabs molt in the main tank. This means that of my current clan, 30-40% of them are up at any given time. I think this is one of the perks of a large colony. Smaller groups sometimes go through molting spurts that leave you watching an empty tank for weeks. In a colony, someone is always out and about doing something.

Tank layout is also important. A colony tank has room for larger and more diverse decorations. Even with a second level, smaller tanks are always fighting for space. My 90 gallon terrarium has room for two large pools as well as a large cave and lots of driftwood. Even with several food dishes and a substantial shell area there is still substantial room on the tank floor for walking. On the other hand, your colony tank needs to have an overabundance of hiding spots both at ground level and on the second level. Large and small opening hidey holes also give smaller crabs a place to hide where they feel secure. Large openings ensures that the larger crabs also have a place to hide. Make sure you larger water pools have a way for smaller crabs to exit. I use a large shell propped up in my largest pool.

Making the leap to a colony tank can be exciting. Making the adjustment isn’t that hard, as long as you are thinking about it from the beginning. I recently inherited a 90 gallon fiberglass terrarium and was excited to get out many of the decorations I’d had to store over the years because my 35 gallon was just too small for them. I’ve also enjoyed seeing other hermit crabs owners colony tanks including Daethian’s 150 gallon.

Do you have a colony tank? Would you like to put a picture of it up here? Drop me an email!