molting and pests

[urbanmama]

I'm new here and not sure where to post this. I'll start with the requisite questions!


What is the volume of your main tank?
10 gallons

How many hermit crabs do you currently have? How big are they?
3 hermies, 2 medium, 1 smallish-medium

How long have you had the hermit crab(s) that you are concerned about?
we have had all three for 4 weeks

What substrate or combination of substrates are you using? How deep is it?
a mixture of salt water beach sand (sterilized in the oven) and coconut fiber, 2 inches at one end and 4 inches at the other end

What do you feed your hermit crabs?
commercial hermit crab food

Do you use distilled, bottled, tap or other types of water?
distilled water and salt water

If you are using a dechlorinator, what brand is it? Does it state to remove all heavy metals, chlorine and chloramines?
I don't use a dechlorinator

What brand of sea salt are you using to supply your hermit crabs with salt water?
Instant ocean

What heat source are you using and where is it positioned?
so far the heat has been stable without a heat source so we haven't had to get one yet. will be getting one soon and perusing the internet and forum for advice

Have you calibrated your thermometer(s) and hygrometer so that you can interpret accurate readings?
no

What is the air temperature range and humidity inside the tank?
75-80 degrees and 70 % humidity

What is the highest temperature that the substrate near the heat source reaches?
85 every once in a while, since then, we've moved the tank to a different room with better air circulation

Do you have any photos of your tank or hermit crab(s) of concern? If yes, please attach them to your post.
no


now for my question, We have what I think are fungus gnats in the crabitat. We had the exterminator even take a look. I went out to get new sand but the problem is that we have two crabs that have been underground for 3 weeks, presumably molting. We have one that was under for 3 weeks and just came up freshly molted last week (yes, they all dove underground within days of bringing them home!) So my problem is that I don't know if I should dig up my molters to clean my cage? I don't have them in isolation cages because I had not passed that stage in the learning curve before they dove under to molt. For 3 weeks all we had was a cage of sand that appeared to be empty and then started to grow little flying bugs! Now I know what's going on with the fungus gnats but I don't quite know what to do about this! If all three hermies were up and about I could just scrub out the cage...any advice on how to care for my molting crabs while trying to eradicate the pests?

[ladybug15057]

What do you feed your hermit crabs?
commercial hermit crab food

Please do get rid of this and begin to feed fresh foods, along with dehydrated or freeze dried foods that do not use preservatives. Majority of hermit crab commercial foods (and others) use ethoxyquin and/or copper sulphate.

Have you calibrated your thermometer(s) and hygrometer so that you can interpret accurate readings?
No

About ½ way down the page. Hermies do depend on a proper humidity level to breath through their modified gills and majority of the time the humidity gauges we buy are always off and can be up to 20%.

http://www.hermitcrabparadise.com/crabc ... eather.php

What is the highest temperature that the substrate near the heat source reaches?
85 every once in a while, since then, we've moved the tank to a different room with better air circulation

What is the temp of the substrate now on the cool and warmer side?

Unfortunately one should not dig up a hermie who has burrowed. This can be very stressful for them or if in mid molt it can be lethal. Do you know where the gnats are coming from? Whereas they give most of us the heebeegeebees, they shouldn’t harm the hermies. But meanwhile do you have any apple cider or wine vinegar? You could make a trap to try to catch them outside of the tank so no more get within it.

[urbanmama]

the fungus gnats are definitely coming from inside the crabitat. The exterminator (he was here checking on some other stuff and graciously checked on the hermies as well) found a bundle of larvae in the cocofiber and I also found some eggs on one of the shells. I have since dug out one most of the cocofiber and recleaned the shells as best as I can without disturbing the molters but I only know the location of one of my molters, the other I'm not sure about. I don't know if the gnats came from the cocofiber or from the moss I purchased. I threw out the whole bag of cocofiber and moss. I'm going to stick with just sand and moss and I will use boiling water over the moss next time I rehydrate it.

will the vinegar trap outside the crabitat be enough to take care of the gnats? I dug out as many of the larvae as I could possibly find. I just wish those other two guys would surface!

As far as the food, we are still working on figuring out what to feed them. Honestly, since they all went underground within 2-4 days of getting home I was sort of waiting to see if they were going to actually survive...I wasn't too sure what was going on...now it seems we've had a successful molt (yeah!) and I'm praying for two more successful molts! I was going to feed our little one some fresh food but then with the gnats I was afraid it might increase the infestation so I thought I would clear that up first then start with the fresh food.

I will check my humidistat accuracy tomorrow.

I'm not sure what the temperature of my substrate is. I don't really have a cooler side and a warmer side. I just have a deep side and a shallow side. My thermometer reads 75 right now but that is the air temperature. Do I need to get a thermometer for the substrate also?

[ladybug15057]

Hermies are a cold blooded creature and need a warmer side of 78-80*F and a cooler side of about 71-73*F to regulate their body temp.
No need to buy special food for the hermies, they can eat a little from what you buy for yourself.

http://www.crabstreetjournal.com/xoops/ ... storyid=25

There are also some higher quality freeze dried and dehydrated commercial foods that can be found at:
http://crabbywiki.com/tiki-browse_categ ... =off&type=

http://www.hermitcrabcuisine.com/

They need a wide variety of food supplements such as copper, lipids, foods high in zeaxanthin many of which have bete carotene in them, high protein source, a high calcium source, chitin, cellulose, spirulina, seaweed, etc.

Sometimes a smelly food will also encourage them to surface. Using cocofiber, are you sure they were not coming up at night for a bit while you were sleeping? Or out running errands?

Vinegar outside of the tank would to be to draw those from outside the tank as opposed to them attempting to get in the tank. Some have been successful suspending a trap inside the tank where the hermies could not get to it.
If they are that bad, have you considered the Hypoaspis Mites?
I have heard of a few who had claimed they had gotten mites from cocofober before, and would use boiling water to expand it to prevent it happening again.
If you do opt to use sand, please made sure there are no holes in the bag. If there are you will need to bake it to kill any possible pests within it.

[urbanmama]

Thanks for your help! I have been squashing those fungus gnats and catching them in the vinegar trap, plus I've started misting with salt water instead of distilled. That along with the spot cleaning seems to have cut back considerably on the gnat population. And, lo and behold, Loy, Hermie #2, emerged freshly molted this morning!!! Yeah!!! Now we are just waiting for Henry to show up and we can deep clean the tank! He is the largest of the three so it makes sense that he should take the longest to molt I guess.

I have already baked the sand to put in the tank. I didn't want to take any chances so I just went ahead and baked it to be on the safe side.

I've also been researching tank heaters and trying to add in healthier food for the crabs as well. This is more work than I thought it would be but they sure are cute!!

[urbanmama]

aack! I was getting ready to come back and ask for more advice about my remaining moulter and now I have more problems! We have moved Loy and Patience to the 30 gallon tank. Now we still have Henry buried in the 10 gallon that is infested with the humpback fungus gnats. I've cleaned most of the gnats out but we need to totally disinfect the tank because the gnats are setting up shop in the house now as well. So how long do we give Henry to moult before I check to see if he died? We've only had him since the end of July and he has been buried for 5 weeks now (he's a medium, about ping pong ball size, PP, I think) It's hard to tell if the tank smell fishy but it does smell musty. He and Loy buried on the same day and emerged a week ago. Loy is only a tad smaller than Henry.

Meanwhile, next door in the main tank, it looks like Loy has decided to surface molt (hopefully that's what's going on!) I'm so new at all of this. I can't put him in isolation b/c the iso tank has Henry and the gnats! Instead I'm going to move him into the little crab house we bought him in (a screened-in enclosure, not plastic) and place that in the main tank for temp and humidity control. Hopefully this will take care of him. I'll also put in some salt water and regular water and some dry food, anything else I need to leave for him?

These poor hemies, no wonder everyone has so many, they never really get to hang out together for more than a few days because someone is always molting!!

[ladybug15057]

Now we still have Henry buried in the 10 gallon that is infested with the humpback fungus gnats.

EEKS!!! This is not good, and the humpback are known to literally eat fresh molters too. Now if it were me, I would need to gently go looking for Henry. (slowly and easily brushing soil away) But I would have a clean area for him, with a hut to cover him with to hopefully cut back on the stress it will cause him. Humpbacks are nasty, and also not good for human health either.
For Loy, do you have a cut 2 liter soda bottle or something that can be used to section him off for now?
Sorry for the delay in replying, is there an update to this situation? (I am playing catch up)

[urbanmama]

update on our herms: Loy survived and is safe and happy in the 30 gallon tank with Patience. He did not end up surface molting. I'm not sure what he was doing that night but I did isolate him and he was back to his normal self by morning and has been his normal self since then.

We did end up digging up Henry b/c we just had to take care of the humpback gnats...but we were so sad to find it was too late. I think the gnats killed Henry. There was a tremendous amount of gnat activity right where Henry was buried. Henry belonged to my youngest son and he was just crushed to lose him, they were actually such great pals and Henry was the most active of the three crabs we have.

We are now working on trying to eradicate the gnats from the rest of the house (they are very nasty, pesky things). And, unfortunately, when I transferred Loy and Patience to there new crabitat, I was so careful to clean and sterilize everything...except the inside of the thermometer/hygrometer! I think a few gnats moved over by hiding in the hollow spot in the back...ugh. I've removed all moss from their crabitat so there is less place for the gnats to hide and I think I'm swearing off moss and cocofiber for substrate, that's how the whole gnat thing started! The gnats seems to love the playsand just fine so we will stick with that for a while.

So we pray for our crabbies every night, that they survive our inexperience and that the gnats all fly into the vinegar trap! We are seeing less and less gnats everyday, especially since removing the 10 gallon tank, which was our main incubator. Any advice is greatly appreciately! I did look into buying more bugs to eat the gnats, but part of our problem is now that the gnats are showing up in the kitchen, etc, so I'm not as sure that that would work. Plus it seems like you have to buy a giant quantity, seems like overkill (no pun intended).

thanks for all the advice, both actively and passively, this forum has been a wealth of information!

[ladybug15057]

I am so sorry to hear of Henry’s passing.

Do you have a water bottle, or even a 2 liter soda bottle? Mix a about a cup of apple cider vinegar too with about 2 tablespoons of sugar. This should draw the gnats more due to the sweetness. (these can be placed in a few areas too, especially where you are seeing them at) Make sure to clean your drains on a regular basis. (I would do them daily for now. Once a week a would use a drain cleaner, then daily I would use distilled vinegar or another very acidic substrate down the drain.)
They maybe coming from outside still too. What I do here to try to prevent them from coming in is take my screens out and put them outside. I spray them with raid flying insect spray and leave them for a couple of hours to air. Then I put them back in, but thing about this is when they attempt to come through the screen they die and get stuck in the holes. But I will vacuum it to remove them. I do not like to use poisons, but I live in the country where no pesticides are usually used and our pests are usually in high numbers.

[urbanmama]

Thanks for the condolences Marie-I will pass them on to my son as well.

I am now off to add sugar to my vinegar traps to see if this will help. And I love the idea of spraying my screens with Raid. Great idea!! I will try that this week.