Deep Clean

Today I performed a much needed deep clean for my hermit crab tank.  It took me practically all day, but that’s only because I took about a bazillion pictures to provide a detailed how-to for this blog.  Anyway, that’s going to take a while to compose, so in the meantime I’m going to post a series of smaller how-to’s leading up to it while I work on the big one. My next post is going to be a how-to on how to prepare salt water.

Before I go, I’ll leave you with the before and after pictures of the deep clean:

Before:

After:

 

New Additions

So today I decided to just do everything I’ve been wanting to do since I got home, and one of them involved going to the mom and pop pet store by me where I got my E’s in December. They haven’t changed much since December, except this time they seemed to be less helpful than last time (I think it was because the girls had to *gasp* enter the reptile room more than bad customer service). So they all look pretty bad, with a couple spry ones mixed in. There was this one large hermie that was this nice deep purple color (it looked like the picture second to the right on the HCA banner) that I almost bought, and the only reason I didn’t is because there isn’t enough room in my 10 gallon. Instead I got a micro and a small. I believe they’re both E’s (bad pictures at the end–they were taken on my cell phone). Anyway, once I get the lady to come back to the reptile room, I picked out my guys and she gave me… A paper bag. I looked at it, trying to figure out what she wanted me to do with it. When I realized she wanted me to put the crabs in there I asked her for a cup. She then gave me two condiment cups and a cover. I’m fighting yelling at her because she’s clearly that oblivious, and kind of stare at the covers for a while. Finally after she charges me (she had no idea what the price was–neither did almost anyone in the place) I ask for a scissor. She stares at me for a minute like I had stared at her when she gave me the bag, then said “oh, you want to make air holes?” Yes, yes I do. Stop looking at me like I’m crazy. Is it so wrong that I want them to breathe? Apparently. Anyway, so she covers the condiment cups and proceeds to cut holes in them with a razor–with the crabs in the cups. Thank god one was itty-bitty and the other was hiding in his shell (which is way too small for him, btw). So I carefully put the little cups in the little paper bag and leave before I seriously do something stupid.

But anyway, I have my two little guys. I didn’t check the bigger one, but I’m pretty sure the little one’s a girl (she moved too fast before I could confirm I saw gonopores). The little one, who I realized had two broken legs (the first knuckle on each are missing), and as I’ve said before, the bigger one has a really small shell on. The little guy hid behind my big guy, Talon, and I believe he has since dug down. I put the bigger guy in with the shells if he wants to change.

The Little One

The Little One (again)

The Little One (Shell)

The Big one (in the cup)

The Big One (in the cup from above)

The Paper Bag

The Little One hiding behind Talon

The Little One hiding behind Talon (2)

 

A long-coming update

So apparently I haven’t posted since the end of February, which I can’t say is all that surprising.  Around the time I posted Sookie’s story, I started feeling rather apathetic about crabbing.  I don’t know if it was due to stress (my dog was dying around that time, and has since passed on, my roommate was trying to find herself, schoolwotk started piling up, and the like), or because my hermies weren’t doing anything.  I would hear them at night, but never see them for weeks on end, or on the off chance I did see them, they would hide from me if I so much as flinched 12 feet away.  Perhaps it was a combination of the two.  No matter what the reason, the result was the same.

I became neglectful of my duties.  Although I often checked the thermometer and hygrometer to make sure that everything was all right, but I stopped cleaning the sand, I let the water levels drop lower than I normally would (I NEVER let them run out of water), and I left the food sit there longer than I normally would (I would take it out when it molded).  I didn’t want to deal with them, but at the same time I didn’t want to give them up or completely forsake them.  It was some weird point where I reached a stalemate in crabbing.

All that changed earlier last week when Talon finished his molt.  He started shortly after my last post.  He’s most definitely molted, as he’s now a very nice apple color and quite hairy.  He’s also become very active.  And as he’s my jumbo, I can see him almost anywhere in my dorm.  So watching Talon do everything that Jack used to before he became severely withdrawn made some of my passion come back.  It isn’t completly back (I’m still trying to figure out why only one or two other crabs other than Talon seem to be out–I have 8), but it’s slowly returning.  I’ve cleaned the tank and I’m more diligently watching the water levels and food decay.  I’ve also realized that I want to get a digital gauge and possibly upgrade to a 20g when I get home.

Talon emerging has also reminded me that his shell is far, far too small for him.  Back when I first got him, he barely moved around, and often dug, so he didn’t really seem interested in anything.  But now that he’s all freshly molted and running all over the place, I see just how small it is.  And despite its small size, he seems to be getting along fine (that’s just an observation).  However the trouble is that I have no idea what size to get him.  He is a very large jumbo crab, and his shell is so small I cannot accurately measure the shell or correctly gauge how large the current shell is.  And seeing as retail stores don’t typically carry jumbo (or at least Talon)-sized shells, I have to order them online.  And in order to order them online, I have to know the size.  He’s much, much larger than any of my other crabs, so I really don’t want to buy a whole bunch of various sizes to find the right one (nor do I really have the funds to use trial and error).

I’ve also come to realize that my tank is in desperate need of a deep cleaning.  The sand and eco-earth are soggy, and the parts around where the food were are kind of honey-soaked, the moss is on its way out,  and I could use some new hideys.  However, I cannot do anything until I go home–which, luckily, I will be doing in about three weeks.  So a deep-cleaning will definitely be in my future.  It’s my first deep clean, and I’m a little anxious, especially since I don’t know where most of my hermies are.  But by god everything needs to be changed.

Finally, a sad update to Sookie’s story.  Shortly after posting my hopeful message, Sookie took a turn for the worst.  First she started streaking, and despite my best efforts to reshell, she refused to do so.  But even then she was resilient.  It wasn’t until she started to foam at the gills did I realize it was a hopeless case.  I had to look up exactly what caused such a condition.  Apparently it’s brought about when it’s too hot or too dry.  It was neither, so I’m not sure what.  And from what I learned about the foaming, it’s pretty much a precursor to death.  I held out for her, but in the end she sadly passed on.  I wish I had happier news for her, but there it is.

 

Sookie’s Story

Right now I’m dealing with a very interesting case.  One that I’m not entirely too sure how to handle, but right now I feel like I’m doing all that I can.

Well, the one PP I haven’t seen much of since I brought them home about a month ago, Sookie, resurfaced (literally) some time last week.  Talon had been tearing up this one particular section that he liked to hide in (and the area where the food is so that the apples are buried), and I had been cleaning it up.  I went to smooth down this one particular section when I see a VERY deformed leg sticking out in the sand.  I thought it was a dropped limb at first, but I quickly discovered that it was a very molting Sookie.  She was incredibly mangled looking.  First thing I did was have my roommate sniff for the dead smell (I was suffering from a horrible sinus infection–I couldn’t smell anything, not even death smell).  When she said she didn’t smell anything,  I immediately put her in the ISO unit I had available.  I honestly thought she had minutes left before she expired–she was that mangled looking.  But she was resilient.  I slowly added food and water upon noticing she (somehow) was moving around slightly.  I had added this on fairly quickly, once I realized within the next few hours she hadn’t died.

The hours passed, and she still lived.  Bits of exoskeleton fell from Sookie, but all of her legs were still horribly mangled.  It was a molt gone wrong.  Again, I thought I was going to lose her.  But she was determined, and showed me that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

And now, about a week later, I’m still at the same place I was when I first discovered her.  She hardly moves, but she can get around.  I don’t think her BP functions, but she’s still incredibly shy around me so it could just be she won’t use it around me.  And every time I think she’s dead b/c she’s not moving, she’ll twitch and curl up farther in her shell to show me she’s still very much alive.  Her legs are mangled, and they jut out in all sorts of random angles, unlike they’re supposed to.  But her feelers seem to be as quick as ever.

I’m really hoping for the best, but I don’t know how long this will take to recover from, if at all.  In the meantime I’m happy to just sit on the sidelines like Sookie seems to want me to, cheering her on.

 

Updates

I’ve realized that I haven’t been posting lately, but schoolwork has consumed my life.  Some stuff has come up, but nothing too major.

Astor and Hank seem to have settled in nicely, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen them underground.  They’re both (I think) changed into matching shells.  Jack has since (I think) changed into a D-shaped conch-looking shell, and has become VERY reclusive.  The other two get skittish when I look into the glass, but he hides for like a half hour.  I don’ t know what I did to spook him.  But I can’t be sure I have them all straight.  I know Astor is one of the two PPs with the matching shells (I checked yesterday), but I’m not sure abou thte other two.  I’m pretty sure I’m right, though, because Hank is very skinny like Astor, while Jack is fatter.

I had one slightly-major issue, and that was I accidentally dug up a molter, Elle (again, I think).  She was under the fluker’s groovy jacuzzi, and (after I checked to make sure she wasn’t molting) I picked her up and put her on the surface b/c I didn’t want to crush her when I put the jacuzzi back in.  Well, the next day she had shed her exo and became a very white color.  I went to prepare the ISO, but by the time I had, she had disappeared.  I’m assuming she dug under again, seeing as her shell was also missing.

Other than that, it’s been pretty uneventful.  The PPs are the most active, although I do sparingly see the occasional E or two.  The most I’ve seen up at one time is 6.  Most of them seem to have taken a shine to the same damn shell, thus rendering them all impossible to tell apart.  It’s (after searching Naple’s Sea Shell Company) the Babylon shell, and I seem to have a lot of them in varying sizes and styles.   And by styles I mean some have more spots than others.  I think I have 4 hermies currently in them.  Two are PPs (Astor and I’m pretty sure Hank), and two are E’s (Elle, Hinrei).  I’d like to use something as a marker to tell them apart, but I know better.

Talon has become a major tank trasher, to the point where I’m not bothering to clean it up anymore.   He only tears apart the one section of the tank, and only after I clean it up.  I’ve noticed he doesn’t tear it up if I don’t clean it up, and it’s not hurting anyone, so I don’t.  Although it has caused a problem, but more on that in an upcoming post.

 

Fail

On the menu: Lettuce, crab meat, turkey

—

So, after pulling out Hinrei today, I double-checked after the Edward debacle, and discovered….  Hinrei’s a girl too.   Now I’m stuck on a name, and so it’s either Millin or Amriel, both names that I like on paper but not out loud…  *sigh* Oh well.  I’ll figure something out.

On another note, I’ve found that Jack has been quite anti-social lately.  He used to be quite active and didn’t mind being handled, but now he barely came out of his shell.  Odd.

And Astor, despite being the shyest of my new hermies, is the most active.  She’s always doing this or doing that, content.  Of course she runs like hell whenever I get remotely close, but I have no intentions on handling her or anything like that anytime soon.  I’m just happy she seems to be settling in this well.
Hank has taken up residence in the moss pit, but seems to be pretty lively, and I haven’t seen Sookie in a while.  Last time I saw her she was also in the moss pit.  Talon came out in the morning, but quickly tore up the tank for a new hiding spot and dug a new hole for him, and Jack I saw sparingly today.  Oh, and I think I saw Elle before dinner.

I wish my hermies would be a bit more active, I mean it’s not like there’s anything wrong with the conditions…  And I mean the heat’s up around 80, but drops gradually to about 70 at night.

 

New Additions!

So, now that I’m back in school, I wanted to get Jack some species buddies.  So Monday, my roomie and I went out to the local petsmart by the grocery store and looked.  I must have picked up every hermit crab in the enclosure, and not one came out of his shell.  My heart broke.  I put them all back legs up.  It took a couple almost 5 minutes to even flip themselves up.  I wanted to rescue them all, but my brain warned me they might be beyond help, and so we had to walk away.  My roommate, who I’ve been teaching little bits of hermie care to, knew immediately without my telling her that the enclosure was off.  We were going to go to a second petsmart a little farther away when we realized we would be late for a dinner reservation with a friend if we did.  So we swore we’d get more either Tuesday after our class or at the end of the week after classes were out.

Tuesday rolled along, and our joint class ended early.  We had time.  I asked if she wanted to go, she said yes, and off we went to the petsmart about an hour away.  This was the petsmart we had gotten Jack, when we knew nothing about Hermit Crabs.  We went in and looked at the enclosure, and it was pretty much identical to the other one.  No one was moving, no one was interested in the fact I had moved them from point A to point B.  So with a heavy heart, we left there too.  I tried to wrack my brain for any other pet stores, as that was all I thought there was, when I remembered their was a Petco on the way back by the mall.  So we figured “why not?” and tried it.  The store was immaculate.  Granted it was new, but not that new.  I estimate it’s been open about 6-8 months, as their original location had closed around the time we left school last year.  All of the enclosures looked fairly large, and we were hopeful.  We moved past the energetic ferrets and the happily chirping birds (which looked like the enclosure was a little crowded, but it certainly is bigger than most I’ve seen in pet stores) to the back of the store.  We looked at the fish.  The fish all looked healthy.  Good sign.  We moved to the reptiles, where Petco keeps the hermits.  They were in some high-tech tank enclosure that requires an employee to open.  There, in three sections of the pull out tank, divided into about 5 gallon sections, were hermit crabs.  They were divided into small, medium, and large.  Made my life easier–I wanted two small ones like Jack.  I looked at the gauges.  70 degree heat, 50% humidity.  Not bad.  I mean considering Petsmart’s tanks were bone dry.  Plus they were at the top of the tank, so it could have been off.  I looked at the conditions – sand, moss, two water bowls, food bowl…  Nice.  I looked at the individual hermies.  Some were moving, and the rest honestly looked like they were just relaxing, not dying.  Bingo.  I called over an associate.

She opened the tank and she went to pick some out for me, but when she saw me go to stick my arm in there myself she let me check out the hermies.  I picked up a couple with no results, and a bunch more than spilled shell water on me (those I IMMEDIATELY put back).  Then I picked up this micro PP in a D-shaped shell because he seemed to active.  I didn’t want a micro, but it immediately popped out of its shell when I picked it up (honestly, I don’t think he even hid into his shell when I picked him up) and stared at my roommate.  My roommates heart melted, and I knew we’d be going home with three hermies instead of two.  The associate went to go get what I thought would be a cup, but turned out to be a little cardboard box that transports mice (and made me curse the fact I forgot my 2.5), and I kept looking.  I finally found two more that didn’t hide when I picked them up, and into the box with some wet napkins they went.  We bought them and took them home, making sure the car was nice and hot.

After bathing them, I was able to coax them out of their shells enough for me to determine their sex and…  surprise surprise, I got my first girls.  Both small PP’s were females.  The micro PP was a male.  Seeing as my roommate fell in love with him, I let her name him.  She named him Hank Moody, after the David Duchovny character of the same name in the Showtime show Californication.  Neither of us could come up with decent female names, so we put them into the tank nameless.  We’ll think of something.

—

Here are some pics:

Hank

Size: Tiny

Gender: Male

Species: PP

Name Origin: Hank Moody from Californication

—

Astor

Size: Small

Gender: Female

Species: PP

Name Origin: Astor Bennett from Dexter

—

Sookie

Size: Small

Gender: Female

Species: PP

Name Origin: Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood/The Southern Vampire Mysteries (Sookie Stackhouse Novels)

Edit: After a bit of brainstorming, we named the white-shelled one Astor, after Astor Bennett (Rita’s daughter, and Dexter’s step-daughter) from Showtime’s Dexter, and the other one Sookie, after Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood.

 

The big move

On the menu: Coconut, Honey, Sweet Potato

—

All right, so Iv’e officially moved back into my dorm, with no problems.  Of course, riding with my mother, yelling at her because she’s breaking too hard was so much *fun* for both of us, but they all seem all right.  Kodee, who is quickly seeming to be my hardiest crab despite being my smallest, seemed fine after I re-set up the tank, so he went in first.  Then Jack, who was sitting on top of Talon, then Talon, then I had to dig up the rest.  I didn’t want to dig them up a *fourth* time, but I was worried that my room would be too cold and I had no way of regulating the KK.  After digging them up I gave them food and left them alone.  I have no idea where Jack is, but last I glanced into the tank, Hinrei was hanging up behind the fake plants on the fishing net, and Talon found solace in my new homemade cocohut, which is big enough for him to get in now.  The others are either with him or underground.

Oh, and of course when I get there I accidentally get the thermometer/hygrometer wet when I was cleaning the sand that got on it in the bathroom.  So now I’m not sure if the hygrometer’s broken, because it’s been at 85% humidity for about 5 hours now, despite being out of my tank for about 2…

Time to go unpack some more *sigh*

To-Do List:

– Go to Bed Bath & Beyond for new smaller shower caddies

– Prepare moss

– Place extra shells in tank

– Possibly get new thermometer/hygrometer

 

World’s Worst Crabber (Part Two… And three?)

Well, after Thursday’s wonderful endeavor…  I went and did it twice more.  I felt horrible, but it was something I had to do.  The first time was Friday, because I needed to take out some of the sand to transport the tank, and they were all buried.  I placed them all temporarily into the 2.5 hoping I wouldn’t have to move them again and just transport them in the main tank…

But then Saturday morning rolled around and my dad told me to put them all in the 2.5.  *sigh* So I prepare the 2.5 for crabs to actually inhabit for more than 5 minutes (the sand was dry and nasty so I added some of the sand/EE I took out of the main tank), refilled the food and water bowls, and gave them the rope to climb (I wanted to add a hidey, but 6 crabs in a 2.5 with a hidey sounded like TOO much).  So Kodee was out, so he was the least traumatized by the swap.  Then I dug up Ichabod and Edward, then took a break to not stress them all out at once.  Then I found Hinrei, then Jack.  And I’m worried about putting Talon into the 2.5 with all the other, much smaller crabs overnight, so I left him in the main tank, which is bare except the food & salt water bowls, and the cocohut (which he technically can’t get INTO, but he seems to like to bury under it and hide under it that way).

But anyway…  Talon seems to not want to dig…  instead is trying to get out of the tank, spending a lot of time on the left side of the tank, where the 2.5 is…  And where Talon almost never spends his time.  I know he wants to be reunited with his friends, and my heart breaks, but it’s what I have to do until the morning.

And as for the other hermies…  They seem to be okay.  Some are a bit more active, others have dug under…  And I think two have taken up residence at the top of the net.  Once I get back to my dorm I’m not disturbing them again for a long while.

 

World’s Worst Crabber (at the moment)

I’m quite unhappy with myself at the moment…  Every so often I have these compulsions (possibly brought on by my undiagnosed ADHD) where I HAVE to do something, no matter how stupid my brain tells me it is, or screams at me not to do…  Usually it’s nothing horrible, just I have to clean my room until there’s nothing on the floor at 2 in the morning, or I have to play a particular game for 6 hours despite having and knowing I have homework.  And if I don’t do it, I can’t concentrate on everything else because my mind is obsessed with doing whatever popped into my head.
Well, tonight it was “let’s find my hermit crabs.”  Yes, they were underground.  And yes, I know you’re NOT supposed to do it, and it’s like rule #1 of no-no’s (well possibly rule #1 is no Kritter Keeper’s, but you know what i mean).  And I’ve advocated others not to do it, either.  But then I reasoned with myself that I was only going to straighten out the substrate….  And then once I had the shell in my hand, nothing stopped me until I dug up all 5 of my hermit crabs (it could have been 4, because I vaguely remember digging up poor Talon by accident prior to this incident and Jack wasn’t underground).  Well I found three of them (Hinrei, Ichabod, and Kodee) over by the heat pad, and the fourth (Edward) in the opposite corner almost at the bottom of the substrate.  And he smelled slightly chemically, so I panicked and cursed myself for possibly digging up a molter.  Well I then went and picked up the 2.5 that I had in the basement, all the while containing the other crabs in a CD case I had in the hermit crab box (it holds like shells and such) I have under the desk.  After setting up the ISO I realized he had finished molting, but I put him in there for a little bit anyway until I could determine he had indeed finished molting.  Now they seem to be exploring the tank (it’s a bit bare without the moss pit or plastic plants), and I can’t remember putting Hinrei back into the tank, but I know I took him out of it…  He’s probably in there, and I’m just panicking, but there it is.

I feel horrible, and I hate myself for giving into those damn urges.  At least Ed seems to be all right…