The Beginning: Crab Setup!!

[Welsh]

I finally got around to sticking my acrylic, in the tank today! Yay me! It passed its leak test too, which I was doubly proud of, because me and aquarium sealant don't usually get along lol. I have no idea what to do from here on though, stick a bunch of things in the tank and see how it looks I guess haha

Anyway here's the pics for anyone whose interested, there's not much to look at really though

 

[carey]

What types of crabs are you planning on keeping? And what's the shelf layer for? LOL I'm curious, only know about my hermit crabs.

 

[Welsh]

Vampire crabs. Well only one atm, the other decided to do a Houdini act last night and I haven't found her The shelf layer isn't anything but a piece of glass, that came with the tank lol I think its for a condensation tray or something. I took the other off but after the mess it left, I decided to leave the other on lol.

 

[carey]

You could probably make it a cool ledge or something for the crabs to climb up. How big do vampire crabs get?

 

[Welsh]

Yeah I was thinking about doing that with the other piece, but then had an idea about dried bamboo sticks lol I think they get to about 3-4 inches.

 

[carey]

Wow thats pretty cool. I have a 3 inch hermit crab in my 55g sw tank. He's HUGE! i was thinking on moving him to his own tank since he is constantly knocking things down.

make sure you post some pictures when you get further along, sounds really unique and interesting!

 

[Welsh]

Desperation is slowly taking over. I did plan on using a mixture of peat moss and orchid bark on the land side, however for the life of me I can't find peat moss anywhere; in stores or online! Even normal compost/soil no longer has peat in it, so yet again I am back to the drawing board.

I don't really want to use sand but I'm the very impatient type and I actually have the play sand, I just wonder what it would look like topped with orchid bark. Anyone have any other suggestions, for a damsel in distress? haha

I've also noticed that the "dry side" isn't so dry. As the humidity levels have to be high, the water on the lid is dripping and causing a small pond on the "dry side" not sure what to do about that :S
Thanks

 

[Mogurako]

Any nursery or home improvement store that sells plants should sell peat moss in a big square bag.

 

[siva]

What the heck..you didn't tell me about this thread! I never look over in this section lol.

They don't get that big..their body won't get more than about 1.5" wide, I do believe.

That humidity is great, exactly what they need!

You want to use Sphagnum moss - the type from the pet store not the home store - I think. At least I didn't hear of anyone using the other stuff. It's crucial you use something for calcium in the substrate mix..either aragonite or you could use a calci-sand like I did

 

[Welsh]

Haha, I didn't think to let you know, I'm sorry lol

If the humidity is that high though, won't the dry side get really soaking wet?

I didn't know Sphagnum moss would be found in pet stores, I've never come across it anyway but then I've never looked for it before lol I was actually looking for calcium last night, I was debating getting calcium blocks that birds use;not cuttlefish but I didn't know if that would be enough for them and I also looked at calcium sand for reptiles. Not sure which one to go for though lol

Bad news... my vampire crab molted for the first time last night; I just found her inside a terracotta plant ring thing, which was weird cause for the last 4 days she's just been just sitting on a plant out of the water. Anyway.... I noticed she was really quite pink and so I picked up the ring carefully to get a better look and she didn't move, so I think she's quite possibly as dead as a doornail So no vampire crabs left for me

 

[Welsh]

Well, I got bored today and felt quite "artsy" so I took some decorative rocks;from my mothers flower pots and decided to stick them to the, water side of the acrylic. At first I didn't think it would go to plan; nothing ever does for me, but to my surprise I was wrong and the outcome.... looked sort of alright Anyway....... Here are some pics of my spontaneous idea

The rocks in place, before sticking them for good!



The rocks in completely different place, to the first pic! but siliconed down.


From a different angle...s'cuse my scanky feet!


All the teeny gaps filled with AS. I quite liked the look :s

 

[siva]

I've been spraying mine a couple times a day and it's not getting too wet. Is your lid 100% air tight? Maybe if water is really pooling up on the dry side you should create a small vent.

Yeah the sphagnum moss stuff is actually shockingly expensive, atleast I thought so, it's called New Zealand Sphagnum moss. Here's what it looks like:
Sphagnum Moss | Substrate | PetSolutions
I lucked out and got the last 2 bags my petco had on clearance marked down to 3.48 from 14.99! Geez..it lasts a long time though and you won't even use one little bag of it. If I couldn't find anything else suitable, I was going to grind up cuttlebones and mix it in. I would do the Calci-sand like I did, choose one that says it's 100% digestible.

That's what happened to one of mine. Only it's claws were pink, but it then lost 2 legs, and was dead the next morning. It had no eyes left, so I wasn't sure if it had been murdered or died naturally. The calci-sand stuff in your substrate should help with this. We need to get as much calcium into them as we can. I'm just pray by the other time my other 3 molt they'll be able to make it through!

 

[Welsh]

Silicone wall, from a different angle. After I finished, I noticed the gap between the silicone and rocks




Covered in sand. I'm starting to think this wasn't a good idea, after letting it dry and dusting off the sand, I had to re-silicone to put another layer of sand on, not so sure it will work.


Re-silcone. Fingers crossed


If this works and doesn't look to shabby, I think I may do the other side; only with gravel instead of sand... maybe haha

 

[siva]

LOL omg you crack me up. Your feet look fine, don't worry That looks really nice, your mom had some nice rocks hehe.

 

[siva]

Hey sand is a cool idea! So wait are you putting more sand over the more silicone? or wait..i got confused?

 

[Welsh]

It actually has quite a big air vent but it still seems to be dripping, like nobody's business lol I actually thought the seals of the divider could be leaking, but they were as dry as a bone.

Ahhh that's why I couldn't find any online;or maybe I'm just stupid haha I typed it in Amazon and found it straight away So what do you actually do with this stuff, put it on top of sand, soil? The calcium sand I found, is £4.30 for a 2.5kg bag, not sure if thats a good but its digestible so it'll do haha What about kiwi sphagnum moss, is that sort of the same thing? lol

Ohh your too kind haha

I let the silicone dry....well I lie I dried it with a hairdryer and then siliconed back over the sand so I could add more, because the sand was wet and not a lot of it stuck properly the first time around. I'm not sure much more will stick to the silicone but it was worth a go and I had nothing better to do

 

[siva]

I don't think it's going to cause a problem. The sphagnum moss can hold a lot of moisture, and your plants will drink it up of course.

Oh gosh don't make me do the conversions lol...I paid 9.99US for 10lbs. I bought it locally which means I likely overpaid. I've never heard of kiwi sphagnum moss. One thing I also looked at were supplies sold from brianstropicals.com and LLLreptile.com. Even if you aren't actually ordering from them, you kinow if they are selling it that it's good stuff.

Ok I poored 25% of each into buckets: coco fiber, orchid bark (do not use other barks), calci-sand, and sphagnum moss. Mix and poor.

Ok make sure you give those layers good time to cure! It will seem dry of course before it is all the way through. I waited until about a day after it completely stopped smelling when I stuck my head in it. It took a good few days.

 

[Welsh]

Ahhh so the bark,etc gets mixed up together. I didn't know that thought it was all neatly put on top of each other haha

 

[siva]

Sometimes you do layer stuff like that in these type set-ups actually, but for the crabs, from what I understand, what we're really doing is making a high quality soil for them

 

[Welsh]

That makes sense hopefully that will encourage them to stay and not run away; in my case anyway haha

How are yours, are they all settled in? Do you have fish in with them?

So many questions haha