For those of you who have followed my blog, You know my crabs by name. Female, Bubbles: Male, Jack.
For those of you who haven't, there you go! Haha, also for those who have yet to read any of this, I am not an expert. I do not claim to be an expert. What you will read here is what I know from my now 4 or so months experience with these animals and with what research I've done. I also dont claim what I do is right regardless, it just has worked for me. What will be posted here in this post and in others has included my experiments to try different things, my trial and error if you will.
On to this post.
Jack has molted for a second time, and is BEAUTIFUL. Bubbles still has yet to molt at all. Supposedly they will stop eating a few days to a week before molting, well shes still eating steadily. But she looks so awful! Just wait until you see the photos I will post at the bottom. I would think I am doing something wrong, but Jack looks lovely. I'm still chalking it up to she needs to molt bad.
I also am starting to devise a plan to get the to come out more, bury less, and hopefully not run ina nd hide the second I come in the room. Id like to actually see them more. and eventually tame them. From what weve deduced, they are wild caught (greeeeaaaat), and will probably take a long time to adjust period.
What Ive done (shown sort of in photos) is turned over the container I used to try running water previously, and put some large heavy rocks to make a graduating side. The crabs naturally will go down slopes to find water so I would like to keep a gradient of land. The rocks are large and heavy enough that they cannot move them or get under them.
 |
| First Attempt at False Base (as of Sept 2012 or so I put a later of Plexiglass down too) |
I then put down my soil layer (already shown above), and layered in a sand/soil mixture as my substrate, I think its not as pretty or clean looking as plain sand, but it makes stronger burrows and holds moisture better than just sand. I bury in small terracotta pots for hides and give them a little leeway on sand so they can close themselves in as they molt since there are two of them, and add decoration.
I make sure to bury the water dishes for ease of access. It makes it harder on me, but easier for them haha. We will see how this works and I will post an update in a few weeks. I generally do a deep clean once a month, but have done it more often recently bc of changing tanks and all those running water problems *sigh*
Now on to the pictures of the crabs!
Jack, about to take a dip in some fresh water.
Freshly Molted!
So cute.
Bubbles, being defensive.
She just needs to molt already... so little.
Thats all for now. Hope you liked the photos!
