red claw crabs (crabs in general)

[thanew]

ok so I bought these crabs the other day.. I thought it was a major mistake because i totally forgot that the little creatures can swim a little distance and CLIMB. so just now one crawled up the heater, and swam a few inches to the filter and crawled out

i love these things but wow, i didnt know they'd be so persistent in their escape attempts. so my question is, is there something i can put over the top to stop them from escaping.. I have like little gaps over between the filter and the heater (both [acronym:fa84894e1a="Hang On Back"]HOB[/acronym:fa84894e1a]) i just put them next to each other and tilted the heater away from the filter in hopes of minimizing the gap. I also covered up any little gap with a small piece of tinfoil.

so i guess onto that, have any of you experienced any problems like this and if so, how did you solve it? and do you think maybe some chickenwire over that area would work? i mean these guys are pretty agile and seem to be able to make themselves smaller (i guess thats why they are invertebrates but).

thanks,

-thane

[Devilishturtles]

I had this problem once. Mine crawled out of my tank, out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs (all carpeted), and ended up dead in the kitchen. For the one I had left, I put down screen. Don't know how accesible it is though to get...we happened to have some extra laying around the house. It worked for a long time. That and I readjusted a few things in the tank to make it a little less easy for the thing to get out.

Good luck.

[QTOFFER]

Check Home Depot or a local hardware store for fiberglass or nylon window screen material.

[thanew]

Originally Posted by QTOFFER

Check Home Depot or a local hardware store for fiberglass or nylon window screen material.

yeah, actually my dad just grabbed some from his shed.. hes the jack of all trades and hopefully we are set now, because I don't want my cat getting to it, nor do I want it crawling out and dying somewhere else

thanks

thane