CtryLuv's Crabbie Cove Temperature Control
Depending on the climate you live in, you could see temp variations from extremely hot to extremely cold. The crabitat must be kept at a pretty constant temp for the crabbies as temp fluctuations are not good for them and can cause stress and death. Below are a few ways to control the temps in the tat during extremes.
My tank is too cold, what do I do?
There are a few different ways to heat your crabitat. You can use just one or combine them. I personally use both lights and UTHs on my tank.
- Under Tank Heaters - A UTH (Under Tank Heater) is more or less a heating pad that you put on the bottom outside of your tank to heat the substrate. They were created to keep the substrate warm for reptiles that need warm sand, ect. There are a couple different ways to use them. You can put them on the bottom of the tat, or you can put them on the side. I personally believe that under the tank is best as heat rises, so the heat goes up into the substrate, and into the tank. On the side I would think that the heat would rise, therefore not warming the inside of the tat sufficiently.
UTHs will bring the temp of your tat up by about 5 degrees or so. You will need to buy one that is the right size for your tank. Do not buy one that is too large as you want to have a warm side and a cool side to the tat. If you buy one that is too large, it may cover the whole bottom of the tank, thus not providing the cool section.
It is my general belief that if you are going to use a UTH, it needs to be left on at all times. The main fear with turning them off and on is that you will have a crabbie bury down when its off, molt, and then be too weak to get away from the heat of the UTH when it is turned back on.
A UTH will also help with keeping the humidity up where it needs to be. Just put the crabbies fresh water pool over the UTH and this will help with the humidity. Also misting the substrate over the UTH will help.
- Tank lights - Tank lights, such as moon glow or day glow lights are great for providing needed heat for the crabitat. The only thing to watch for when using lights is to make sure they dont lower your humidity. As long as you have a decent lid, or hood, this should not be a problem. Right now I have 2 aquarium hoods on my 55 gallon which I run day bulbs during the day and replace each night with the night lights. I have not had any problems so far with keeping the humidity up.
I will be purchasing a Flukers tri-light combo for the 75 gallon in the near future and have read that these lights are great for heating and lighting. They contain a place for both your day and night bulbs, extra outlets so that you can plug in a UTH if needed, and switches so that you can turn on whichever set of lights you prefer without having to switch out the bulbs. The hood holds 4 incandescent bulbs and 1 fluorescent.
My tank is too hot, what do I do?
This is probably one of the hardest things to control during the hot summer months but it can be done. First of all, realize the crabbies come from tropical conditions and a temperature spike of up to around 89-90 degrees for short periods of time will not hurt them as long as your humidity is up where it needs to be. The largest danger of heat is high heat and low humidity. Below are a few ways you can cool down the tat.
- Frozen water bottles - Fill bottles most of the way full (pop bottles, water bottles, ect) 16 oz
to 1 liter with water and freeze them. Put them in your tank or on top of
your tank. This seems to help keep the tank cool.
It seems to mess with the humidity and lower it, so you will have to keep an eye on it and may have to mist more frequently.
Also the bottle will have condensation which will drip into the tank,
regardless of which location you put it, and can wet the sand considerably, so
this needs to be watched. One thing you can do is set the bottle in a small lid to help catch the condensation. If you put it on the inside of the tank you will also have to watch to make sure your crabbies stay away from it.
- Wet towels and fans
Wrap cold wet towels around the tank and have a fan blow on them.
Have a cold wet towel hang inside the tank. Have a fan blow on it.
Wet a towel with cold water, drape over the tank, and have a fan blow on it.
Fans blowing directly on the tank will lower humidity, so you will have to
keep an eye on your humidy levels.
- Ice CubesPut dechlorinated ice cubes in water dishes.
- Homemade Mini Air Conditioner - We had had some issues with our central air unit and at times the inside of the house would hit 100 degrees, with the crabbie tank crawling into the 90s. My hubby, bless his heart, made the crabbies a little homemade AC unit for the tat.
What he did was take a butter bowl, cut 3 windows into it, cut a hole in the lid and tied down a small computer cpu fan onto this. He hooked the fan up to an adapter to give it power, and covered the fan with the plastic mesh you find at walmart. We made sure it was totally secure and that no crabbie could get anywhere near the workings of the fan. You will notice in the pics below that the windows in the bowl are uncovered. We have since covered these with the same plastic mesh so that a crabbie could not crawl into it.
Once he had it made, we filled the bowl to the bottom of the windows with dechlorinated ice cubes and plugged in the fan. The fan blew down onto the ice and forced the cool air out of the windows into the crabitat. As the ice melted, this also put humidity back into the tank, so we had no humidity issues to contend with. I have also since added the plastic mesh around the wire leading to the fan to keep the crabbies away from the wire. This little unit worked wonders with keeping the conditions where they needed to be. However, that being said, I will not run it if noone is home to keep an eye on it. Of course, the ice needs to be changed out as it melts also. It is also a good idea to put down a lid or something underneath it to catch the condensation.
There is a picture of the unit below to give you an idea of what he did.
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