Under water Dry zone for fiddler crabs

I currently have a 55 gallon fish tank up and running, and needed my 10 gallon fish tank that held my fiddler crabs for something else.  Being that fiddler crabs cannot completely live under water and actually need to out of the water, i was left with an issue, the solution, make a dry zone for them.  I have seen a bunch of them for sale, but what is the fun of buying something when you can make it yourself :D

quick list of what you need:

1. clear jar large enough for a couple of fiddler crabs to crawl into
2. Aquarium fish tank air hose
3. Aquarium air pump rated for your tank
4. aquarium air stone
5. sand/gravel
6. (optional) decorations for inside the dry zone

Step 1: Get a jar

First, get a large clear jar, being that I have a 55 gallon tank, I have enough room for a large "Mt. Olive" pickle jar, luckally for me, my wife likes pickles, I had an empty jar kicking around.  Clean out the jar, if you must use soap, really rinse out the jar, while at it, try to peel off the labels. 

Comments

[AndyGadget]

 
Interesting idea - An underwater beach.
I immediately thought of the treedome when I saw this as well.

[infernisdiem]

I did have sandy chilling in there, sadly, I lost patrick when I moved the fiddler crabs into the 55, and added all the sand from their 10

[HockeyPop]

What does he do for food, order crabby pizza? How often do you find yourself having to clean it? Great idea, BTW...

[infernisdiem]

they generally eat what is on the bottom of the tank, I have crab pellets that sink to the bottom, but generally it is a mix of the fish flakes, blood worms, and freeze dried shrimp. This has only really been set up for 2 weeks, but I am thinking that it will be an easy, stir up the sand and let the filter suck out the nasty water.

[infernisdiem]

before he died, when i needed to clean it, I would turn off the bubbler, put an air line in the jar above the water line and flood it, then when everything was floating in the water of the jar, turn the bubbler back on but low so it slowly pushed everything out, worked for the 2 months it was set up

[Biggsy]

I know this may seem like spam to some people but bear with me. I found this ible REALLY interesting, I have been interested in Red Clawed Crabs for a while and bought some this weekend... i have decided to do something very similar if I ever decide to buy a bigger tank... as the commercial underwater lagoons are very expensive. For those who own crab, and would like to help out newbies like myself (or at least follow my progress) please feel free to join my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/redcrabdiaries

[diamar79]

aaahh..that explains why the fiddler crabs I had either climbed out or died...they shoulda informed me of that at the pet shop..lol

[mochimaster]

It kind of reminds me of this project I want to do, unfortunately not some time soon though.   I thought of getting a plastic tub, attaching many bricks or concrete blocks to the sides of the tub (with ropes and drilled holes) and make an underwater air zone for swimmers in a pool.  A bicycle air pump attached to a hose would connect to the air zone for air circulation.

[infernisdiem]

almost the same idea of flipping a canoe over in the water, though I'm not sure that a bike pump would be enough to bring in the oxygen that you would need, if you had a big enough dry zone, and did hydroponic plants, you might be able to get away with one or two people in there for a short time. If built large enough to house a decent sized TV, couple of chairs, and had a pipeline that ran down into the dry zone to provide electrical etc, it would make "why don't you go out and play" much more interesting. I can see it now, "First one into the dry zone gets the good controller"

[dangerine]

Do the crabs still try to climb out of the tank, or do they spend most of their time hanging out in their awesome airdome?

[infernisdiem]

I have a board that completely covers one side, and the light cover has tin foil around the openings, leaving just enough room for the water to filter into the tank, so far, it keeps them in the tank lol

[Treknology]

This is the sort of 'ible that carries the simplicity of ideas that I crave. Regardless of category, if this were in a contest, I would be rushing to cast a vote.

[infernisdiem]

someone suggested that i put it in the summer water contest, and I entered it, but it was an odd way to enter it, apparently I just had to put a link in the comments section lol

[pww]

Make sure the air tube is secured VERY well. I did something like this many years ago and it worked great until one day the air tube dislodged and I didn't notice.

The trapped bubble kept area dry, but the crabs wound up suffocating. Was a sad day.

[candykitten]

Hey Thanks,
I am just pulling my large tanks out of storage and I have a couple or really unique jars. I am going to put some none excavate-able objects.
I needed this idea "GREAT Post"

[mick.fielding]

Hopefully the little guy doesn't excavate too much of that sand out of the jar!!

[mick.fielding]

....great idea though
certainly adds an extra element of interest to the tank

[infernisdiem]

surprisingly he doesn't try to move any of the sand, when they were in the 10 gallon tank, they moved the aquarium gravel from under the filter that was in there lol.

[bajablue]

Very clever!!!

[jeffeb3]

I did this for my fiddler crabs a couple years ago, except I used a fish bowl I bought at goodwill for a couple bucks. I'm glad you wrote an instructable about it. It's kind of sad that the male spends so much time attracting females, when there are only the same two girls in the tank all the time...

[cybergod]

Impressive and great recycling. Nicely done :-)

[jessyratfink]

This is a very good idea. :)

[Browncoat]

You might want to try to enter this in the Water Challenge. http://www.instructables.com/id/Summer-Water-Challenge/