QuestionIts me again, I was wondering, I plan to put two "shell dishes" in my crabitat, and then a small pond. I'm guessing one dish would hold spring water, the other food, and then the pond filled with ocean water (or half half)? I've heard its a good idea to put a pond in the tank for them to bathe in by them selfs, but is it spring water or ocean water?
Which means if I wanted to bathe the crab myself, would it be bathed in spring or ocean water?
just wanted to make sure. ^_^ lol.
while I'm at it, what kind of water should be in the pond inside the ISO tank? or just pre molt, period?
and.. what about "Stress Coat?"
sorry if these are noob questions :P
AnswerOkay, let me break it down.
Ideally your water dishes would both be big enough for the crab to get their shells in half way. The onlytime you really need a pond is if you have a Strawberry crab (Perlatus). The need to be able to mix the salinity of their shell water by going back and forth.
You need fresh water and ocean water (both dechlorinated). Don't be tempted to dilute the ocean water, it needs to be mixed according to the directions for sea water salinity.
If you only have room for one pond, make it a fresh water pond but make sure the crabs can get their shells in the salt water too, even if the dish is small.
Generally if you hand bath (something I do not do), you do it in fresh water.
ISO's need both fresh and salt water. Molters really need a lot of salt water (and obviously fresh water to drink). It is not necessary to ISO molters unless you really want to. I've never ISO'd a molter unless he was dug up during a deep clean.
Stress Coat is often used by some for bathing but not really necessary. Over the years I've never seen anything that indicated to me that it made any difference and it should not be used in drinking water.
Okay, I think I got them all, don't worry if the questions seem "noob", everyone has them at some point!
