The Daily Hermit

 I also decided to err on the side of caution and replace all of my silk/fabric plants with plastic and get rid of anything porous like wood or netting and get new. It did end up getting rid of the gnats but it was a HUGE pain in the ass. 

It's been too long since I updated, but things have been super quiet here on the crab front. Ignatius is still among the missing and presumed dead. I can't even find his shell so I'm not sure what became of him. He has simply vanished. Our current crab family is down to two: Batman and Gregor. Batman has taken to tunneling voraciously and I haven't seem him out and about in awhile so I think he's doing the molting thing or maybe just enjoying being underground for awhile. By contrast, Gregor has become quite social. Here's a shot of Gregor nomming down some food.

Batman has constructed himself a bat cave of epic proportions! He is ready to fight crime!

I used to have a bunch more shells, but I have no idea what happened to them. I think they were thrown out because I hadn't planned on ever getting hermits again. ;; I had some nice turbos and whatnot. The five that I found are two goldmouth turbos, two of those super light white ones with the brown spots on them, and one old generic snail shell looking one. It's got obvious layers on the outside, but the inside looks fine. It's also quite stained from my old tank, when I only used eco earth. :/

I saw this in the "Ask a Country Vet" Column of Country Living magazine (June issue) and thought it could be helpful. It touches on shell shape and selection, as well as painted shells and righties and lefties. It was accompanied by a cute picture of a couple hermits (they looked like straws) on a beach, but in the interest of keeping the article readable I cropped it out. Happy Hermiting! :)

Picked up two new "food bowls" for the hermits today. They both look like this. Overkill? Kind of. Especially since they're almost 5" across. But hopefully the enamel won't allow mold growth!