Beachcombing Trip

Today I took a trip to a local Kentish beach to locate some new, naturally sourced, foods for the crabs. Each of them is being tried out with mine over a period of time and, if successful, will be introduced to the shop at a later date.

The trip was on an absolutely beautiful day with nobody else around, and after some high winds so there was a lot to be found!

Some of the beachcombed foods are:

Dried Bladderwrack

Dried Whelk Egg Cases

Coral

Crab Carapace

Rose Sprigs and Photoshoots

So far the new tank design has survived the crab's nightly fiestas other than the odd filled in water dish, all the cholla climbing branches are still in place and other than an accidental flower removal on one of the fake plants everything is still intact.

They have really fallen in love with the climbing section, the babies sleep up there most nights and even during the day at least one adult regularly appears on the main branch. So, to give them a bit more of a "natural" foraging chance and keep things interesting for them, I've started adding sprigs of freshly cut safe plants to the tank. Each bit is pushed into holes in the main cholla branch, some on the top, others on the sides, and occasionally hanging down from underneath, and the hermies really seem to be loving the new foods and exploration opportunities. 

As always Vandal was the first to check things out, the first test of the idea was with rose cuttings and  a stem of thin bamboo (real bamboo, NOT the toxic "lucky bamboo" sold in homebase etc). He ended up demolishing the rose and only one leaf was left by the time the others started waking up so a night trip into the garden was needed and by morning that was all gone too. Clearly a success! I don't have any pictures of the bamboo sprig yet but within one night all leaves had been stripped off.

During the spot clean Oliver finally made a proper appearance without hiding so I decided to try for some decent pictures of him. By some miracle he didn't retreat and the first nice, non blurry shots of Oliver were achieved. 

Even with the tatty shell he came in (they are all still refusing to budge despite yet more viola shell being added, other than Rupert who is back into a tapestry turbo), Oliver is definitely a beautiful crab and hopefully over the next few moults the blue tones of his carapace will become even more vibrant.

Return of the Batcrab

The hermies have been making the most of their new decor already. Valentina, one of the babies, has now changed into a shell big enough she can retreat right back to the point it looks empty.

This has not stopped her exploring, and shortly after being put back in the tank by the food dish she reappeared at the top of the cholla level, resting for a bit before climbing back down surprisingly gracefully.

Later that night one of the larges appeared on the cholla, but unlike Valentina he went for a less conventional  way to rest. Ninja also put in a brief appearance at the bottom of the front cholla ramp before disappering into the cocohut for the night.

 Our batcrab impersonator stayed hanging out while the tank was checked and misted, seeming to snooze with no effort and completely oblivious to the goings on.

 Once the food dish was topped up he came to more and realised the camera was there, deciding that he didn't fancy a more public hangout anymore.

He pondered the dilemma for a moment, should he climb up or instead try to reach the floor?




Up would mean more effort....



But could he reach far enough down?







Stretching down with one leg still holding him up, the claws just reached the safety of the floor, and the front legs gained purchase on the shells below.







Slowly he lowered himself down, finally releasing the cholla...

Making his way off to the food dish for a midnight snack.

Crabitat Makeover

The tank had been looking very boring and dingy with its lack of fake plants, so as part of a trial run for potential future products I chose a few new bits for it, stripped everything out and completely redid the decor after adding some extra substrate.

Of the original stuff the coconut hut, two pieces of cholla, ocean pool, cork bark cave and food dish remain. The net will be readded at some point after it recovers from being pulled down and buried the night before. The new items I picked out are two fake ficus sprays, two plastic grass sprays, a leafy stem with lilac flowers to add in extra colour, a new piece of mopani wood and two more cholla pieces from my stash.

First I removed the hermies (all were on surface) and all the items to allow me to stir up the substrate and add in some more sand, other than a load of buried shells there was nothing to remove like food items. Next came working out the cholla climbing area, with a stroke of luck the chunky branch I wanted to have level is a perfect fit to hold itself securely wedged flat halfway up the tank walls. I broke out the cable ties to add two smaller bits as ramps up to the balcony piece, one each side, and a smaller piece leading to halfway up the slightly thicker ramp. The natural holes in the cholla make threading through with cable ties possible without drilling, cutting out some of the work that may be required with normal branches.




The ficus sprig stems have been threaded through the bigger holes in the main cholla piece and bent around and fastened with more cable ties to make them very secure, and the branches bent as needed to create a leafy screen to give privacy and security to the hermies and encourage them to climb.

The ocean pool was set into its dip next and the sand around firmed down to help prevent it being tipped over to flood the tank, with shells and pebbles placed in the bottom as they were before to stop the two babies becoming stuck with the sloping sides.

The stems on the plastic grasses and flowers are easily bent at a right angle to be buried deep down and help keep them stable even if anybody burrows directly underneath, and the small mopani has been placed directly in front the grasses to add another climbing and privacy area.

After that the tray of cleaned shells, fresh water bowl, cork cave and coconut hide were all placed, and a new order of more small shells added to give the babies a wider choice.

The hermies seem to feel much more secure in the new layout and have been climbing and exploring almost non stop, even the shyer members of the colony. They seem to love the new plants so once they have been tested for a while longer the grasses and ficus sprays (variegated and solid colour) will be added to the store, and the green cable ties are already there.

The Store Opens

Finally, all the months of hard work have been done and the Crabby Cravings store is now officially open!

Crabby Cravings Store

The past few months have been hectic, a lot of late nights, emails and phonecalls have been done making it hard to find time to update the blog (it will be regularly from now on), but the shop is open and we are very proud of our foundation stock.

I have to thank again our amazing suppliers, the lady from Trading Standards who has been truly invaluable, the people from Channel Weighing and everyone else who has helped to reach this point. The patience, kindness and help you have all shown has lead to a far better start than originally dreamed.

A lot of our stock is sourced from organic human grade suppliers, every food item is the highest quality possible and I am particularly proud to say we are stocking Natures Grub products among our own. The health and wellbeing of our customer's animals always has and always will be our priority, and I am confident that we could not have found better suppliers to achieve that.

If you have any questions, requests or would like to discuss anything then please feel free to get in touch, all messages will be answered as quickly and fully as possible.
Rachel