Please sign this petition so

Please sign this petition so we can put a stop to Walmart’s ‘Crab in a Cup’ idea. This is horrible. Poor hermit crabs stuck in plastic cups and sold like pudding. Its bad enough that bettas live like that but at least they have water.
Sign Here

After reading some articles I have reason to believe we should change our idea of ‘acceptable humidity’ for our crabs. Cavipes, Rugosus, Brevimanus and Perlatus are all native to the Seychalles Island(sp?). Average humidity on this island is 80% Which means 80% shouldn’t be the max humidity but the target humidity.

In a small, and so far short, experiment at home I decided to try this theory out. I took the coral sand out of the tank because it needs to be cleaned. Its too cold to clean it as normal so I replaced it with good old sand, with a smidge of ee mixed in. The humidity rose to about 90% and has easily stayed there. The crabs are busy… very busy day and night. Always out milling about, climbing, digging, eating or drinking. Okay not the Indos but we know how lazy THEY are LOL Even my normally dormant Cavipe, Judith is busy. She nearly escaped this morning by stowing away on the lid when I took it off to remove last nights uneaten food. This time of year, most seem to say their crabs are less active. Why are mine so busy now? Is it the added humidity? Possibly the sand but I don’t think that would account for all the activity.

Typically, crabbers are warned away from higher humidity because of the possibilty of mold and mildew. Maybe I’m lucky, but I’ve never had a problem with either.

I also am maintaining a range of temps in the tank by having the uth in the right hand end. The surface sand temp is 78-80F while the left corners are 72-74F. I have one thermometer pushed right down to the glass on the UTH and it reads 120F!! Don’t think those things don’t get hot! My thermometers are all laboratory grade so I know they are accurate. My new hygrometer is not, and I need to attempt to calibrate it to ensure that it is reading accurately.

The reptile hammock filled with moss is a big hit, especially with the Indos.

Musty the ruggie has been shell swapping like mad from the new shells I got at sealifegifts.net and PetsMart. She is trading between a nutmeb/king conch and a small tapestry turbo and then back to her original striped turbo. The shells I got were all gorgeous. Echo the E recently changed from her turbo into a rock shell. I am really more and more convinced that E’s are NOT the picky shell shoppers they are made out to be. At least half of my E’s are in turbos right now. I believe its more a matter of time than pickiness. I’ve had them all over a year now and as time goes on they are more interested in new shells.

Another ruggie from Petco passed away. I went back for a refund today. I’m afraid the cold weather is doing them in, even with the precautions I took to get them home warm. We’ll see how the remaining crabbers do. Both of these crabs died IN the shell, neither fell out, drooped out or went naked. That is a first for me. The one had impacted his shell with EE somehow, which may or may not have contributed to his death.

I’m a little concerned about Tommy. Iris dug right down on top of her in the ISO. Being a small crab, Tommy should have surfaced by now if she was molting but I haven’t seen her. Its possible she dug down and died, all 4 other crabs I bought with her died almost right away. I dont’ want to risk turning up Iris to find out what’s going on. I’ll have to wait till Iris comes up and then go looking for Tommy.

Oscar is digging a lot and has previously displayed molt symptoms. I’ve got to set up a 10 gal for him if Iris is not going to come up and relinquish the 2.5 gallon ISO. That means I will need to buy some additional sand this weekend. Being the largest crab I own, I’d rather he didn’t molt in the main tank.