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Inspiration to do this again. 9-6-22 Day One for the new perlatus babies! I’m estimating about 400 zoeae, which sounds like a lot, but with an ultimate survival rate of maybe 2%, that would mean eight on land. Since I’ve never gotten straws to land before, even eight would be a big victory for me. We shall see… This new kreisel build has its issues. It’s not leaking, which is a win, lol. The rest of the things are fixable, I believe, so it will just involve plenty of tinkering–as does any new piece of equipment that one builds from scratch without a blueprint. I need to put something black behind the tank to make the videos clearer, but this is what we’ve got for now. I’ve put my shop on hold to concentrate on this attempt. It would be wonderful to have enough survive to be able to learn about them from birth. Send lots of good vibes for their health and...

July 8, 9, and 10, 2022 We are virtual again in 2022! There were simply too many unknowns still present when we made the call in December of 2021. But we have already secured an EXCELLENT venue for 2023 in Blacksburg, Virginia.We’ve got an amazing lineup of main stage talks and live sessions this year, as well as fantastic SWAG for the VIP ticket holders that will ship out before the conference. There’s still time! As of this writing, there are six VIP tickets remaining. But once they’re gone, they’re gone....

Kermit and Gilda, sittin’ in a …. cocohut. Today, just a few days after the August full moon, I’m seeing the first signs of guarding/mating behavior in my large tank housing all of my adult clypeatus. This time it is Kermit (as usual) and Gilda (a female crab who came to me as a male, and was formerly known as Guido). They mated last year, but I don’t believe she spawned correctly, so we’ll see how it goes this year. Lola and Artemis are usually first in line to mate with Kermit, and I did hear a lot of chirping earlier in the week, but didn’t witness anything firsthand as I have lots of hiding areas in my tank. But Artemis is definitely acting broody already, so I’m guessing Gilda isn’t the first to succumb to Kermit’s...

Because of Covid-19 and New York state’s slow rollout, we have had to make the decision to go virtual for Crab Con 2020. And our Crab Con 2020 tickets page is ready! I will break down the pricing for you here (but it’s also on the tickets page.) Our BASIC TICKET to the conference is only $10. And the Basic Ticket gives you access to view every single one of our Main Stage talks when they air. (We have 22 scheduled at present–that’s less than 50-cents per talk–and we now have three full days to talk about hermit crabs–YEAH!) The downside to this ticket is that you can only see the talks at the time when they air (no playbacks) so you will have to keep track of the schedule in order to not miss a special talk that you want to see. But it’s a GREAT DEAL for those on a tight budget, especially if you are good at remembering when to watch.Our FULL ACCESS TICKET is $59. The Full Access ticket holder can attend all of the main stage conference talks and presentations, view and participate in any of the special sessions, participate in virtual round-table discussions, view expert panels on specific topics (with Q&A chat), as well as enjoy access to the Crab Con Expo (sales area) where you will enjoy special offers from our participating vendors. The Full Access ticket also allows you to view and playback any of the talks or sessions that you might have missed or that you want to study more closely.Our VIP TICKET is $99 and grants the holder full access to everything all the other levels enjoy (talks, sessions, Q&A, Expo, etc), PLUS VIP ticket holders get the Crab Con 2020 conference bag complete with conference SWAG, vendor coupons, and goodie bags from our sponsors, vendors, and supporters (filled swag bags will be shipped out prior to the start of the conference). There are a limited number of these tickets available, since we will have only so many bags and only so much swag. They are a great deal for access to a full conference, even without the bags, but when they’re gone, they’re gone....

Crab Con (IN-PERSON) isn’t looking good this year, like so many other planned gatherings. I will make a formal, definite decision soon, but please know that if we can’t meet in person, we will definitely have a virtual conference–and the plus side of that is that then anyone can attend. 🙂 My Caribbean crabs (clypeatus) are all down and I will have “Pet Sand” in there for the foreseeable future. I am in the process of moving all of my tanks to a ground-floor level room, though, so once they come up they will be getting an all-new setup. The exotics (perlatus and lila) are in a new 90-gallon tank with huge water features and they are loving it. One of the strawberry females is now carrying eggs. Not sure when she will drop, but we do have a full moon approaching, so I’m getting prepared in case it’s soon. Also…we rather unexpectedly reached a whole new level this week in terms of furthering and expanding the breeding program. My friend Kelly Kurtz (who is also a fellow crab keeper) lives about 5 hours away and got an unexpected spawn in her saltwater pool in a tank that houses mostly exotics. She’d seen some unusual behavior from her straws and violas the previous week, and so we are thinking (and hoping!) that the zoeae came from one (or both!) of them. (It’s also generally not the season yet for PPs to spawn.) Have zoeae, will travel. So…baby crab lovers that we are, we both scrambled to find a way to get the zoeae here. She rushed to siphon them out of her saltwater pool, purchase large Mason jars, an extra air pump, an inverter for her car to power the air pump, splitters for the airline tubing, and a whole bunch of sticky hand warmers to put on the jars for warmth. She then put the jars in a box and hit the road (with her seat-warmer on high because the temperature was only in the 40s). While she was doing that, I was getting the kreisel ready, mixing saltwater, setting up a holding tank for aerated, warmed, filtered saltwater, locating their special foods, and then I hit the road, too. We met in the middle, handed off the larvae, and I sped home. Only trouble was, there were three jars and only one splitter. So for the third jar, I inserted a pipette through the hole in the lid and every five minutes or so reached over and gave the bulb a couple of squeezes to shuffle the zoeae around, making sure to shoot some air bubbles in...

February 14, 2020 2018 baby, 18 months old. The babies from the 2018 spawn are now 18 months old and some are really starting to look like small adult crabs. It’s hard to believe I used to pick them up in an eyedropper. Others, from the same brood, are still quite small. The 2019 adopters and I are working together to try and figure out the reason(s) this very different growth may be happening. It’s mysterious, as it’s not tank specific. For instance, I have some of both, kept in the same conditions, with no discernible reason for the big difference in size.   2019 baby who climbed all the way to the top of a clover sprout. He looks very pleased with himself, don’t you think?. The babies from the 2019 spawn are doing well–insofar as I can tell. I refuse to attempt a count of 700+ baby crabs that are still the size of peppercorns. Fortunately, the wonderful adoption folks at LHCOS are doing a fantastic job of approving an awesome group of adopters (application here) to give these babies new forever homes. Now they just have to GROW so they can get big enough to adopt out. Many adopters will pick their babies up at Crab Con in July, some will have them shipped after the conference.   The really exciting news for the breeding program, though, is that I will be working one-on-one with a nearby hermit crab enthusiast who has agreed to try her hand at raising zoeae–with some help from yours truly. Brianna will be taking any purple pincher spawn that I get this summer and raising them herself in a setup of my design and with my mentorship along the way. This is really exciting news, because we definitely need more people successfully breeding … and what better way than with a batch of already hatched zoeae and some personal instruction?   One of the Coenobita lila I hope will breed. Coenobita lila. BUT! (Yes, it gets better!) What has me super stoked about this news is that it means I can focus 100% of my energies now on breeding the exotic species that I have in my care. Last summer, my female Ecuadorian (Coenobita compressus) had eggs, but she didn’t spawn correctly, so there were no babies to raise. And I now have strawberries (C. perlatus) that have been with me for eight months and I’m hoping they will gift me with babies this year. Coenobita lila close up. AND …. drumroll …. through a very happy twist of fate, I now have a brand new species that (I believe) has...