Hermit Crab acclimation when there is a large salinity change

[Tim Olson]

I plan on ordering some Red Legged/Scarlet Hermit Crabs soon and would like to use the "agreed upon" method to acclimate them to my system. Although, in my research there are many theories on how it should be done. Here's 3 methods for Inverts that were mentioned most often:

1. Temperature acclimate for 15-20 minutes and then drop them in the tank.
2. Use the cup method by adding a 1/4 cup of water every 5 minutes and drain half the water a couple times for a total of about 40 minutes.
3. Drip acclimate for about 4 hours.

The main problem I'm facing is my Salinity runs 1.025-1.026 and the places I plan on purchasing them from ship at 1.020, which is a significant change for the Hermit Crabs, I assume. Plus, I've had mixed results in the past by using these methods.

Thank you for any advice you may have

 

[devilhunt1231]

Personally with that amount of difference I'd be using the drip method to bring the salinity up to your levels slowly over several hours, although personally I'm not a fan of places that keep invertebrates in low salinity and tend to avoid using them.
Gary

 

[Tim Olson]

Thanks Gary,

Drip acclimation makes sense to me to, but it will be interesting to see what other feedback we get in this thread.

Also, are there any places you would recommend that have higher salinity? I've dealt with LiveAquaria before and they were 1.019-1.020, which seems like a recipe for failure. I've also dealt with Reef Cleaners, but I didn't check their salinity.

 

[devilhunt1231]

Hi Tim, I agree with you that it'll be interesting to see what opinions other have on the subject as salinity can vary quite widely from different suppliers, As to recommended plac9as I'm UK based they probably won't be much use to you
Gary

 

[BigJohnny]

~

 

[BigJohnny]

Live aquarias fish are 1.019, their inverts are 1.025. Anything divers den is 1.025.

If your tanks at 1.025, you just temp acclimate.

 

[Tim Olson]

Live aquarias fish are 1.019, their inverts are 1.025. Anything divers den is 1.025.

If your tanks at 1.025, you just temp acclimate.

Thanks! That's consistent with the inverts I got from Live Aquaria. They've had a much higher survival rate than inverts from my LFS, who keep them in the same system with the fish and run 1.021. I drip acclimate inverts from the LFS for about 4 hours and so far have drip acclimated from Live Aquaria too. Although, based on your suggestion, I'll try temp acclimating them next time.

 

[BigJohnny]

Thanks! That's consistent with the inverts I got from Live Aquaria. They've had a much higher survival rate than inverts from my LFS, who keep them in the same system with the fish and run 1.021. I drip acclimate inverts from the LFS for about 4 hours and so far have drip acclimated from Live Aquaria too. Although, based on your suggestion, I'll try temp acclimating them next time.

No problem, I would still measure the salinity of the bag (or one of the bags) upon arrival as can vary slightly. I just got 11 hermits, 2 emerald crabs, and 2 peppermint shrimp from them this morning, sure enough it was 1.025 s.g.

All I did was temp acclimate, remove the animals from their bag and discard the water, then rinse them by adding them to 3 different 2 gal buckets in sucession with about 2-3" of my tank water in it. Helps ensure no water from the live aquaria system comes with them.

Done that last 5 times probably with shrimp/snails/crabs and never had an issue. My tank is 1.026 as well so there is even a small jump.

I'd acclimate greater than .001 difference but that's it.

 

[Tim Olson]

Sounds like a good strategy. My tank is at 1.025, so hopefully there will be no issues next time.

I think my previous problems were actually due to near-zero Iodide levels, which I'm in the midst of stabilizing. It turns out that my new refugium was taking in all the Iodine, since the algae was growing so fast. Now that I'm running about 0.06 Iodide the snails and hermit crabs are doing much better.

Thanks again for the help!