Hello all new member from the high desert of New Mexico checking in. My wife just returned from a road trip to sunny florida and told me she had a supprise for me. Low and behold she picked up several dozen striped hermit crabs (Clibanarius vittatus) I belive. I found some instructions online for quickly making some sea water and placed them into a shallow, about 4-5 inch deep tray filled with my salt water mix. Did not have any additives to put in as it was 10 at night, but the additation of water and some gold fish flakes seemed to perk them up. Was planing on starting a fresh water tank soon, and already have a 10 gal sitting empty, but just the tank though. Looks like I need to get to the store today to pick up some equipment to keep these buggers alive any idea what I need to pick up? I know that the tank is to small for this number of crabs but is all I have now, hopefully I can find homes for most of them. They range in size from 1/2 inch across to almost 6 inches claw to claw. Ugly things but easy to get attached to.
New guy checking in.
- Thread starter Dover157
- Start date
Six inches claw to claw? That is HUGE!
Those things will be real monsters in home aquaria!
You will need a heater, and a hydrometer to be able to tell salt concentration.
Other than that, not much. Honestly if you keep on top of h2o changes tough little animals like these can probably be kept with just an airstone and a good gravel vacuuming once a week.
Those things will be real monsters in home aquaria!
You will need a heater, and a hydrometer to be able to tell salt concentration.
Other than that, not much. Honestly if you keep on top of h2o changes tough little animals like these can probably be kept with just an airstone and a good gravel vacuuming once a week.
Thanks for the response, hated to do it but ended up at Petco last night to get some supplies. I was hoping to get the stuff I needed at a smaller store so I could possibly get some advice on what I was buying, but I dont get off work untill 6 pm and they are all closed by the time I can make it into the city. After what I have read here I was a little worried about shopping at one of the big box stores but did not have a choice. When I walked in and told the guy what I was looking for he was honest from the front and said he did not know much about SW setups but would help where he could. Good news for the trip they had a sale going on and I was able to get a 20 gal kit with tank, filter, heater, hood, light, and water treatment all for $69 which is less than what it would have cost for the filter, heater and hood for my 10 gal. Bad news, live sand is expensive. lol Picked up 20 lbs of live sand, 10 lbs of dry sand, sea salt, couple of live rocks for climbing, and some food for the crabs, glass tube hydromometer (sp?) cause I did not want to use my homebrew triple scale in a fish tank, and picked up some turtle food while I was there. Well $200 later im heading for the car and thinking "what have I gotten into this time. Get home and start the setup process, now mind you its 9:30 I have been up since 4:30 am and I have to get up at 4:30 again to go to work lets just say it got messy lol. After getting the tank washed, setup, filled, water treated, pump running ect..... its now 11:00 and im getting a little tired. I let the tank run for about 30 min and I know that I should let it run longer and wait for the water to clear but I just dont have the time, I need to get to bed and the crabs are dying in the shallow dirty (stinky) water. I take my time sorting out the ones that are showing signs of life and not putting the obviously dead ones in the tank. Also toss in some of the shells that the dead ones came out of so there are options if any want to upgrade. To my supprise most of the ones that I thought were alread dead or close to it came around prety quickly when in the new water and while sitting watching I noticed that not all of the shells were in fact empty. I appears I also have a handfull of live conch crawling around, not sure what they eat, but cool. Now seemed to be a good time to feed the crabs that were moving about and becoming more active. Well the down side of shooting blind here is I only knew that crabs liked dried shrimp, so I picked up some brine shrimp cubes for them. I now also know that brine shrimp cubes float and crabs do not which is a bit of a problem. but as it floated infront of the pump the current pushed some to the bottom where the crabs were grabing it as it moved by so I guess they wont starve at least. at this point its after midnight so I pry myself away from the tank and get a few hours sleep. When I got up this morning the water had cleared some but was still cloudy and all the crabs were moving so i guess mission sucess, now hopefully they are alive when I get home. One question, the light that came with the tank is a single bulb floursent (sp?) is this good for an invert tank and should I leavt it on all the time or shut it down when we go to bed?
Wow...that was a mouthful.
If food gets in the tank, it will eventually settle to the bottom. I might let that light run 12-14 hours a day just to grow algae for your pets.
I would also get a timer so that you dont have to worry about turning it on and off.
If food gets in the tank, it will eventually settle to the bottom. I might let that light run 12-14 hours a day just to grow algae for your pets.
I would also get a timer so that you dont have to worry about turning it on and off.
Well almost at the two week mark, and I have 4 crabs that are still alive, and seem happy in their new tank. Since I got paid yesterday decided it was time to head to the LFS and give them some of my money. Took in a water sample and had grand plans of getting some more LR, and a cleaner shirmp or 2 and perhaps some snails..... Alas no luck, according to the staff the numbers on my water were off the charts except for salinity which was a little low, and they did not seem to belive that I could have anything alive in this water
. Well they happly sold me a water test kit, a new bag of I.O. and some prime and stabilize (sp?) and put me on a strict water change and treatment schedule for the next 7 days at which time they asked me to pull another sample and test it (figure I will use my test kit, and also take a sample into the store to make sure im doing it right) to see if my tank is suitable for life at which point they may be willing to sell me living critters lol. What have I gotten myself into, my daughter wanted to get some new hermit crabs while we were at the store, but the crabs they sell are the size of the claws on my crabs, I dont think they would live long. Will post some pics as soon as I get the camera downloaded.
. Well they happly sold me a water test kit, a new bag of I.O. and some prime and stabilize (sp?) and put me on a strict water change and treatment schedule for the next 7 days at which time they asked me to pull another sample and test it (figure I will use my test kit, and also take a sample into the store to make sure im doing it right) to see if my tank is suitable for life at which point they may be willing to sell me living critters lol. What have I gotten myself into, my daughter wanted to get some new hermit crabs while we were at the store, but the crabs they sell are the size of the claws on my crabs, I dont think they would live long. Will post some pics as soon as I get the camera downloaded.