The Daily Decapod

For a while there, things were going great, but in the last two weeks, I have lost four crabs, three of which I'd had more than a year. Sed and Awk were both Indos who were brought to me by a LHC member. They always hung out together, and they passed less than a week apart. Before they died, they both spent a lot of time in the salt water dish, so they may have been fighting infections or some other kind of problem. The fact that their deaths are similar, and relatively close together, is worrisome. My third Indo, Grep, had been staying on the other side of the tank, away from them, for weeks, when he used to hang out with them as well. Perhaps he knew they weren't well. I hope he was able to save himself. (My fourth Indo, More, hasn't been seen for months -- I fear I've lost him to a bad molt, but haven't looked for his body yet.)

Forceps was the last remaining crab in the group I ordered from Hermits Direct in April of last year. The box arrived with a heatpack, which was not only totally inappropriate for the weather, but I believe damaged all the crabs in the shipment. The two Straws died right away. The Es and Ruggies lasted a little longer, but Forceps far outlasted the rest of them. He was never very active, but he was one tough little survivor.

Finally, Shredder, one of the 11 purple pinchers I got in January, died unexpectedly. In fact, I think even he might not have expected it. One day he seemed fine: the next, I found his shell perched in a favorite spot on the waterfall, and him on the ground below. The fact that he'd obviously been climbing when he died (the shell was not stuck) is extremely unusual in my experience. It makes me think that whatever killed him came on quite suddenly.

Thank you for letting me say goodbye to these good friends. I will miss them all so much. Even though I have lots of crabs, each one has his or her distinctive habits and quirks, and I find myself looking for them in their favorite spots long after they have passed.


The last picture I ever took of Sed, only a week or so before his death.


Awk liked to climb more than the other Indos -- I often found him perched somewhere.


Forceps never overcame his shyness, and was always a bit of a loner.


Shredder was extremely active in his last weeks of life -- he seemed to be thriving.

Posted by Andrea in Hermit Crabs at 20:40

I've never tried to hand-feed one of my crabs -- for most of mine, it's pretty clear that would scare the pants off 'em. But over the weekend I picked up three new large (maybe even smallish jumbo) purple pinchers, and one of them in particular is quite friendly. Having read about others who had one or more crabs they could hand-feed, I decided to try it with this guy. This afternoon, I offered him a raisin. He thought about it for a minute or so, antennae waving. Then slowly he turned toward my hand and reached out with his feeder claw. A walking leg on the other side came out to keep my hand still. (I was trying to reposition in order to ensure that the pincher would find raisin and not finger -- the crab didn't seem to be making a big distinction.) Then he carefully took the raisin with his big pincher. How cool! I haven't named the new crabs yet, but here's a picture of the one I hand-fed. He is the lightest of the three. The darkest is so burgundy he looks black.


Give me a raisin, please!

Posted by Andrea in C. clypeatus at 19:19

It has been a while since I've added an entry ... or updated my site. Dunno if there are people out there who notice, but if so, I'm sorry, and I'll be adding more soon. My cockatiel has been sick, and I have been spending lots of time with him (and lots of time at the vet). Fortunately, he's doing much better than expected, and we're hoping that he'll live much longer than than the few weeks the vets originally estimated. I truly believe that having the support of his "flock" while he was feeling down has made a big difference, though most of the credit probably goes to the antibiotics he took. He has been diagnosed with terminal liver disease, but what was really bringing him down may have been an infection.

In other news, I have several new pets! My new crayfish, Claudette, keeps me company at work now. She's a baby Procambarus clarkii -- blue, of course! She was born in January, and came to me about a month ago. She is a true Louisiana swamp crayfish from Baton Rouge!





I also ended up with a new betta by accident. I went to a work-related conference where they used bettas as centerpieces for the tables in the dining area. At the end of the conference, they were up for grabs, so I took one. He's a good looking guy -- I'll post a picture of him soon.

Sadly, I also lost a few crabs, including Tweezers, the one remaining crab of the first group I ever bought. I'd had him for a year and eight months, and I am not sure what caused his death. It just seemed like he slowed down, and then one day it was over. But overall my crabs seem to be doing well. I've been seeing a lot of my Indos recently, and my Cav just came up from a molt. Wrecking Ball, the jumbo purple pincher I got not long ago, just buried, presumably for a molt. Yikes -- that's gonna be a long one!

My snails are doing well -- the babies are growing, and the adults are still producing clutches like crazy. I can watch the baby snails cruise around the "nursery" (a 10 gallon tank just for them) for hours. Soon I'll have to pick out a few favorites, while the rest go to new homes.

And I guess we can't leave out the Blue Devil fiddler. He's doing fine. After six months, it seemed like he deserved a name for being such a survivor, so he's now known as Duke.

Posted by Andrea in Crayfish at 18:05

I brought home a new friend: a jumbo purple pincher. Someone had spotted her at a pet store on the edge of town, and I guess was touched by this crab and wanted it to have a good home. Big crabs need a big crabitat, which this person did not have. I however, do, and I have room for at least this one jumbo. Here she is:



I was surprised that the first thing this crab wanted to do when we arrived home is to change shells. She immediately began to inspect a shell that was about half the size she could possibly wear, and I had to scramble to turn up a few things in my shell collection that would be big enough. She immediately turned her attention to one of these larger shells I put in, which happened to be a Pomacea canaliculata shell (the kind of snail that Bubbles and Squishy are). After she changed, I picked up the horse conch she had taken off, and I can understand why she changed: that thing is HEAVY! The cana shell is very light, and a better fit as well.

Sadly, there are probably half a dozen crabs the size of my new friend (who I have not yet named) or larger sitting around in the open-air tank at Earthbound Trading Company in the Katy Mills Mall at this very moment. And no doubt others elsewhere in town as well. And arguably the best way to save land hermit crabs from this fate is not to buy them, because if you do, you simply encourage the stores to re-stock. But sometimes, making the difference for one individual crab seems more important to me. It's choosing emotion over reason, but I guess that's part of the human condition.

Posted by Andrea in C. clypeatus at 18:58

On Tuesday, I got some new snails: 5 Pomacea haustrum, 4 blue Pomacea bridgesii and 4 ivory Pomacea bridgesii. They live in the reinvented 75 gallon tank, which now has some new faux decor, including plant mats to provide a soft cushion for falling snails! Besides the snails, the 75 gallon houses the eleven danios and one medusa pleco that lived with Ulysses, plus 5 new baby kuhli loaches. I'll try to post pictures of the other newcomers soon, but for now ... check out my haustrums!


Posing for a photo on the plant mat


Snacking on some veggies.


Not sure what was going on here!

The second night I had them, one of my haustrums left me a treat: green eggs!


The eggs will be going to a good home with another snail hobbyist. P. haustrum is not yet particularly common in the pet trade, so I didn't want to distroy the eggs even though I think I am set in the haustrum department at the moment! I need to name the five I have, but I am still working on telling them all apart!

In other news -- Zeus the Cherax Zebra crayfish molted! She grew back her missing legs and "thumb", and her tail is whole again now too. She looks great, and seems to be less shy, too. I'll post a new picture of her soon.

Posted by Andrea in Apple Snails at 21:13

A month ago I brought home eleven new purple pinchers. Tonight I added the six that were above ground to my main tank. They were quick to fade into the background, but I tried to get a few pictures of each before they hid out. And here's a picture of Ohm, one of my little Straws, encountering Anvil, one of the new purple pinchers:



Anvil is about the reddest purple pincher I've ever seen, though you don't see much of him here. Another one of the new guys, Millhopper, is quite red too. The similarity between Anvil and Ohm's coloring is pretty interesting, I think. I should have pictures up of all six of the crabs that joined the main tank tonight very soon!

Posted by Andrea in Hermit Crabs at 22:34

I've been meaning to share a picture of Machete, my only C. cavipes, stylin' in his fox shell. Cavs seem to like the oddball shells: it's as if they have a sense of humor. In this shell, Machete looks a bit like the prince from the game Katamari Damacy to me. Any Katamari fans out there? I love the "Make Cancer" level in the original game!

Posted by Andrea in C. cavipes at 22:26

Last night I found Tongs had passed on. I'd had Tongs for 18 months: Tweezers is the only crab I've had longer. Tongs was always shy, and never super active. I feel certain that his death was caused by poor nutriton. I don't think he ate anything but commercial foods, and though he molted at least twice with me he never grew, and with each molt his coloration got worse. After his last molt, he had lost almost all his red coloration, and was brownish-bluish-grayish. I had recently stopped offering commercial food in a separate bowl, and dropped FMR Treat and Fruit and Flower food from the menu entirely, in the hopes of improving Tongs' eating habits. I think all my other crabs have embraced the healthier fresh foods. Many of my once-small purple pinchers have grown surprisingly quickly and have much more pigmentation than when I purchased them.

Tongs was a wonderful crab despite his bad eating habits, and I am incredibly sad to lose him. He loved to change shells, and I wish I had pictures of the many shells he wore. But he was also quite shy, so I don't have as many pictures of Tongs as I would have liked. The first picture I ever took of him sums his lifestyle up pretty well:



Tongs did not move from his dark corner of the tank the first month I had him. I didn't expect him to survive, but somehow he did until now. Tongs never met a shell that wasn't worth investigating, and wore shells that no other crab has looked at twice since.



As one of my first crabs, Tongs endured my failings as I learned how to maintain a good crabitat: humidity fluctuations, mold, and a diet of nothing but commercial food in the beginning. He really was a sruvivor, and by sitcking it out with me for this long has helped me learn a little bit more about hermit crabs. I just wish I could have learned it soon enough to help him.



Goodbye, Tongs. Tweezers and I will miss you greatly.

Posted by Andrea in C. clypeatus at 20:49

I spent most of Sunday giving Ulysses' tank a deep cleaning, during the course of which I needed to run out to the pet store for supplies. I guess it must have been fate, but at my LFS, they had five crayfish, all quite exotic: three Cherax Zebra, one blue form Cherax Apricot, and one blue Procambarus clarkii. I was SO tempted by all of them. I went home and researched them online for hours, and got some helpful input from Yabbyman at the Blue Crayfish forum. I found that I would be able to maintain the proper conditions for any of them, but they all had some drawbacks. The Cherax species are both quite shy, and may not come out much except to eat. The clarkii don't have very long lifespans, and the one the LFS had already looked like an adult.

When I returned, I was able to make my decision: the Cherax Zebra that I had seen fending off his cichlid tankmates was still at it today, front and center in the tank. (Incidentally, crayfish and cichlids should never be kept together, though my LFS doesn't seem to care.) The poor little guy is quite banged up: he's missing three legs, a chunk of tail and part of his claw. But I love his spirit! I named him Zeus, which is probably a common name for pet Cherax Zebras, but what the heck, it fits!






If you'd like to see what the other crays I was considering looked like, follow these links to see similar ones:

Cherax Apricot (They are nomally apricot colored!)
Blue Procambarus clarkii

http://crusta10.de, the site I'm linking to here, has the coolest and most complete set of crayfish images around. Anyone interested in crayfish should check them out! The site is in German, alas, but I imagine they have great crayfish info as well.

Incidentally, I moved the rest of my site to this domain this weekend. That took all of Saturday. I still need to add a few things and polish it all up, but it feels good to have most of the work done!

Posted by Andrea in Crayfish at 20:02

My order from Naples Seashell Company arrived over the weekend! I got some new shells, and a birdfeeder made from a coconut that makes a a great crab penthouse. Frank also threw in a black seafan!

Here are some pictures of the new stuff before the crabs got ahold of it. So far, Needles is the only crab to spend a lot of time actually in the coconut, though other crabs visit it occasionally. What they really seem to enjoy is giving it a haircut!


Lovely new shells! Check out those smaller-than-usual African turbos.


The coconut feeder when it was still pristine.

Posted by Andrea in Hermit Crabs at 20:09

Ulysses, my first crayfish, died over the weekend. I am not sure what the cause of death was. I don't know his age, so it could have just been his time, though his time with me was rather short. He had been less active, and less interested in food since the weather had gotten cooler. From what I've read that is not abnormal, maybe it indicated that he wasn't feeling well.

I spotted Ulysses at Petco last Spring, and I fell in love with him immediately. He was already an adult then, and quite large. I got Petco to hold him for me while I found a tank and cycled it. I like to think he was very happy in his 75 gallon home while he lived with me. He enjoyed his driftwood caves, going through the hole in the large rock in the middle of his tank, and climbing the fake plants. Oh, and distroying the real plants I had before I wised up and got fake ones. He was quite the character, and I really miss him. I had been looking forward to Spring, when I thought he'd become more active again.





Goodbye, Ulysses.

Posted by Andrea in Crayfish at 19:59

Yesterday I adopted two hermit crabs from a member of LHC, who no longer had as much time for them as they needed. Their names are Angie and Big Green, and they are quite a lively pair! Both are Purple Pinchers. Angie is small, and a delicate shade of lavender. Big Green is medium-sized and a lovely reddish-brown. Because their previous owner had them for two years (which is longer than I have had hermit crabs myself!) I decided that they would be best served by being placed in my main tank immediately. So they have had a full day now of exploring and meeting new friends. Actually, Angie has spent most of today napping with Chisel in the space in the Misty Mountain Volcano that was intended to hold the ultrasonic fogger, but has turned out to be more highly desired as secluded hideout (sans water and fogger, of course!) Big Green has checked out all the climbing opportunites, changed shells twice, and checked out the tasty treats in the fresh food dish.


Angie, before her nap.


Big Green after his first shell change. He's in a banded peth at the moment.

I hope my new friends will be happy and healthy in their new home!

Posted by Andrea in C. clypeatus at 22:02

I've had several more molters come up, leaving behind little pits in the sand. Into these pits fall shells, and occasionally crabs! Some of the freshly molted have immediately hidden. The cholla tube is a popular spot. so I haven't gotten a good look at them. The recently-returned include Cracker and (I think) Needles. Cracker came up with some amazingly bright colors, perhaps from the fresh foods he's been eating. Cracker is a big fan of meat in particular, as are many of my purple pinchers.


I love Cracker's one red toe!

I also have some new additions in my iso -- eleven of them! PetSmart had a really active bunch of purple pinchers in their tank, and I couldn't resist. Even after five days, many have yet to settle into the "destress slump" I'm used to seeing. Several have buried, but many others are moving around on the surface a good bit, choosing shells, and taking advantage of the fresh treats I'm putting in the food dish. I haven't named them yet, but I'm hopeful that I'll lose very few of this bunch to PPS.

Posted by Andrea in Hermit Crabs at 20:37

Two crabs that had been down molting for quite some time resurfaced this week. Spark is one of four small strawberries that I purchased in October. Toggle is a small purple pincher I got not long after. Toggle was missing a leg or two when I got him (he didn't let me get a good look before he buried!) but now he is fully equipped with all limbs and shiny toenails to boot! I am pretty sure that Toggle has molted twice since I got him, and this is Spark's first molt with me.


Spark seems to have boundless post-molt energy!


Toggle spent several hours in the food dish after surfacing today.

Posted by Andrea in Hermit Crabs at 22:26

We had a very busy December, and a good Christmas. My two big gifts were converting the garage into a painting studio, and my new pet apple snails. We already had one apple snail, Proteus. Proteus originally lived with my husband's crayfish at this office, but the crayfish was a bit hard on poor Proteus, so we brought him home. Once he had his own tank, he really came out of his shell, so to speak and became a lot of fun to watch! After learning more about apple snails (and how many great colors they come in!) I decided I wanted to set up a larger tank of just apple snails. So I converted my 20L to a snail home, and purchased a beautiful array of snails from Rainbow Snails. Lucky me, they are about an hour's drive from my house, so I was able to drive down to get them. I added four more Pomacea bridgesii (the same species as Proteus) in dark purple, magenta, light-striped purple, and "jade" (a dark-footed snail with a yellow shell). I also got two Pomacea canaliculata, in yellow and dappled olive. The canas will grow to be quite large, and will hopefully become hand-tame. I have heard that they can even learn to beg for food, by presenting a folded foot at the waterline, ready to receive a chunk of algae wafer or other treat.

I had thought that Proteus was female, so got all female snails from Rainbow Snails. After they'd had some time to adjust, I added Proteus to their tank. Proteus gave me a nine-hour demonstration of the fact that he's most definitely a male thank you! Oh well -- I was hoping not to have to dispose of egg clutches (since I have no place to raise baby snails) but they are bright pink and laid above the waterline, so they will not be hard to find if or when they appear. I will be bringing the 3 gallon tank that used to be Proteus' home to work next week, and I am debating whether Proteus or the new dark brown bridgesii (purchased the same day I moved Proteus) will be in it.

Here's a picture of Mushy, my dark purple bridgesii and recipient of Proteus' affections:


I am happy to report that the deaths in my hermit crab tank seem to have tapered off. In the past few weeks, I have only lost one crab: Nitro, a large Straw. Because Straw deaths are always so mysterious (Nitro was climbing and acting totally normal only a few hours before I found him dead) I don't know whether his death was related to the others, or would have happened anyhow. I am down to 29 crabs now, but have my fingers crossed that my losses in 2006 will be few.

Posted by Andrea in Apple Snails at 13:25