Wednesday, September 07, 2005

 

Hermit crabs!


Sheesh... I had been lazy! It had been a week since my last posting! But well, I was relatively more busy the last week anyway... :)

Ok... Let's take a look at my hermit tank today... I have 5 hermits in this 2ft tank. 3 big ones, 1 medium sized one and 1 small one. But recently, I could not find the small one and then I saw its empty shell! I am hoping it had changed to another shell...

I will be stripping this tank down soon cos I wanna re-lay the substrate to cater to the humidity and drain off any excess water. The hermits can be rather rowdy and can overturn the small water dish and the water will be logged into the gravel... A lesson learnt from the previous batch: Hermits DON'T like their feet wet!

The 5 hermits this time are coloured! Hee... One of them is red in colour, two are purple and two are grayish-white. And they LOVE to climb... As you can see, they love to climb up the branches and sometimes sleep up there. And the big gray even like to climb along the rim of the tank top! *Yikes!* Without the temporary cover, it sure will climb out!

Nightly, I will hear them crash fall onto the substrate... Sometimes even onto this glass container I am currently using to house an earth-star like plant. I tell you, besides being irritated by the noise, I am so scared that their shell will crack!

The red one often like to dig into the soil in this container and sleep inside. If not in the container, it will try to dig into the corners of the tank. The screeching noise made by its legs against the glass can be very irritating! :)

The digging behaviour had also caused the moss to die out! So sad, cos a friend had spent some time cultivating the moss to grow emersed! Hopefully the re-laying of the tank (and the subsequent re-scaping will be able to save them!)

I'd also added some airplants (will be adding more) and a creeping fern like plant but the hermits are bent on destroying them! Will be placing out of their reach in the new scape!

I will post the 'new' tank after I find the time to do so. Should be removing the glass container to prevent their shell from really cracking! Also needs to thicken the substrate to let them dig and try to designate no-digging areas for the plants! The wood also needs to be re-arranged so they won't be able to climb to the tank top!

The purple one. They all love to climb:


The tank with the plants and the moss still intact. The glass container is on the left:

The humidity starts to kick in, esp after the air-con is switched on:


The best climber of all! Walking along the tank top edge under the plastic temporary cover!


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