How to Decorate Your Hermit Crab's Tank

Опубликовал Admin
5-10-2016, 11:20
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Got a boring hermit crab tank, where your hermit crabs are mindlessly walking around the empty tank?(well...they do that all the time.) why don't you decorate it? Sure, it sounds easy. But read on if you want your hermit crab to be a bit more than a mindless zombie.

Steps

  1. Make sure your hermit crab is healthy. are you giving it enough food? Is he moist? (He should be!)
  2. Be aware that hermit crabs are scavengers. Are you giving it enough of the correct kinds of food? Land Hermit crabs require a varied diet that consists of all the nutrients needed to keep them happy and healthy. That also means that they will most likely hide the food that they don't finish between little cracks in your decorations or bury it in the substrate. Be aware that this can cause mold, which is very harmful to hermit crabs, so be sure to sweep through the substrate every few days to check for buried food/mold.
  3. Get some terrain. Hermit crabs can't burrow in the glass floor or gravel.
    • The substrate doesn't have to be anything fancy. It can be moist (not dripping wet but sandcastle consistency), play sand, beach sand, Eco Earth (coconut fiber), or a combination of both sand and coconut fiber. Make sure the substrate is deep enough that your biggest crab can completely dig under and cover himself. Just remember to replace it when it gets dirty, or to save money you can bake the used substrate in the oven and heat it to sterilize it..
  4. Make sure you have adequate heating and humidity. Hermit crabs usually live in moist, warm climates. That is the type of climate that must be maintained in a crab habitat. Your tank should maintain a temperature of at least 75 °F (24 °C), but the best range would be between 78 and 82 degrees, Under tank heaters and aquarium hood or reptile cage hoods that have dual lights in them work to add extra heat to a habitat. Moisture can be maintained by misting the tank, adding wet sea sponges inside or outside of the water bowls. Buy a good thermometer/hygrometer set to place in the tank (about 1/2 to 2/3's up the tank wall). Monitor this and make sure you keep the temperature and humidity within the correct ranges.
  5. Food and Bathing/Drinking pools. You can use just about anything that your crab can reach for a food dish, as long as it isn't metal (metal is bad to use in your tank). It is also recommended that you have two dishes/pools of water in the tank, one filled with dechlorinated salt water (which can be mixed using products found at pet stores such as Instant Ocean, some pet store will also sell pre-mixed sea water by the gallon). The other bowl should be filled with fresh dechlorinated water. You can purchase a tap water dechlorinator at any pet store, which will remove all heavy metals, chlorine and chemicals from your tap water. A few drops will dechlorinate a large amount of water , so one bottle should last for quite a while. Make sure that the pools are deep enough so that your largest crab can immerse themselves, but make sure there are glass stones and a sponge in each bowl to make sure smaller crabs can get out easily to make sure they don't get stuck and possibly drown.
  6. Most hermit crabs enjoy climbing, so it may be a very good idea if you put rocks, corals, or wood in your tank. Make sure they're clean by boiling the rocks and microwaving the wood before placing the items in your tank. Also, NEVER put any pine woods in, as this is harmful to the crabs.
  7. Know about plants. If you put them in, the crabs will eat them. But if you want them to stay, put fake Silk plants in there. If you do want your crabs to eat the plants, be sure they're hermie friendly.
  8. Add some seashells. Have at least three correctly sized shells per crab in the tank. Even if they don't try them on, the shells will become "toys," as your crabs will drag them around and climb them. Be sure they're clean, though. Boil them in dechlorinated water to make sure they're safe.

Tips

  • Be sure to never self paint shells as this is extremely dangerous to your crab and could be fatal.
  • Hermit crabs may become bored of seeing the same shells after a while. So you can do this: get a whole bunch of seashells, then divide them in two or three groups. Put one group of shells into the tank, then next week, switch to the other group of shells into the tank. Since hermit crabs don't have such a good memory, they won't know that there actually looking at the same shells from last week!
  • Never use painted shells because hermit crabs eat their shells for calcium. The crabs may potentially eat the painted shells, which are very toxic to them.
  • No, hermit crabs don't breed in captivity. They need the ocean to breed and raise the zoea.

Warnings

  • Make sure you don't decorate the tank so much that there's no room for the crabs themselves. They're the stars. Not that 4" by 4" coral that dominates the whole tank.
  • Do NOT provide your crabs with painted shells. The paint may chip, and if the crabs eat it it is certainly not good for them. Also, paint on the inside of shells may cause the crabs to become "trapped," as it may melt. It's not cool. So don't give your crabs painted shells; there are many beautiful, natural shells to offer.

Things You'll Need

  • At a least a 10 gallon (37.9 L) aquarium. This will depend on how many crabs you intend to keep and the size you intend to buy.
  • A heating source
  • Thermometer and Hygrometer to measure temperature and relative humidity.
  • Play sand, Hermit crab sand, marine sand or Eco-Earth (coconut fiber) or a mix of sand and coconut fiber.
  • Non-metal food, saltwater and freshwater containers.
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