Crabs

We have crabs.

Pet crabs.

That live in a tank.

*I have to clarify because a friend asked me what kind of crabs on Facebook.  As if I would talk about any other type of crabs publicly - sheesh!

During the last month of school, GG was studying fiddler crabs and African clawed frogs in Science class.  At the end of the unit, with parental permission, students were allowed to bring one or the other home as pets.  GG chose the crabs and we gave her permission to bring home two.  Three if the teacher still had some that needed homes.

A week before the crabs were due to come home, her teacher sent home a bag of goodies for the crabs - Instant Ocean for their water, a water dish, food (that stinks!), some of their sand mixture, and instructions (thank you!!).  The kids and I went to the pet store to find a new aquarium, some fake plants, and something for them to hide under (half a fake log).  GG finally brought her crabs home and we got them into their new home immediately, almost losing one in the process.  Had it have fallen on behind the stand where the tank is, it would have been lost forever!

At first, I was a little disappointed that her three crabs are all female.  The males have one giant claw they like to wave around.  I thought that would be cool to watch.  It turns out, three female crabs are just as amusing.

For the first few weeks, they hid among the plants and in the log.  We also got to see what happens when they molt.  It was kind of gross to see a ghostly, empty crab shell floating in the water, but it was nice to see the two who were missing legs grew new ones after shedding their old shells.

One day we noticed one of the crabs had started to burrow behind the water dish.  Afraid she would get stuck, I filled the hole and made sure the water dish was as close to the aquarium walls as possible.  All was well for a bit, but then she started to burrow behind the water dish again!

We finally caved and moved the water dish out.  Crabs love to burrow and we obviously weren't stopping them from burrowing where they wanted to burrow.  Once one made a nice little hole to hide in, the other two followed suit.  As of now, if you were to come into our house, you would think we were crazy people who kept a nice aquarium without any creatures in it.  Those little bugger rarely come out of hiding before 10 at night when the kids are in bed and it's quiet.  Smart little crabs!

The one thing that was driving us nuts with the whole borrowing thing is that we could only ever find two crabs at a time.  It finally got the best of us and we invaded their space.  Their water dish rests on the sand with a hill on one side for them to climb into the water.  Two of the crabs made nice little homes on the side of the water bowl and the third dug herself a home smack dab under the middle of the water bowl.

Our crabs are so fun to watch when we catch them out of hiding.  Now if only I could get GG to stop talking to them like babies every time she tries to pick them up!


What's the most interesting pet you've ever had?


Until next time...