No I never did! I did glance through that it's difficult and nearly all are wild caught, but that's as far as I knew.So true! They all act differently. Some you'll see during the day, others you'll never see. Some are shy, some are not. Most don't realize they spend a lot of their life way up in trees and the rest of the time buried deep in the sand for months at a time.
When I was a kid, all pet stores stocked them and I remember my parents allowing me to keep them and unfortunately, keep them horribly I did.
Until I kept them this last time, I had no idea they needed a salt water pool (dish/bowl) as well as a fresh water pool and they have to be deep enough for them to fully submerge. I also did not know they need to be kept in sealed enclosures that are kept at ~85% humidity and ~85F. They'll eat about anything and when fed and kept well, they grow fast! This means you need to keep lots of available shells for them, which gets expensive the larger they get. I watched some of mine swap shells which is neat to see.
In the end, I just couldn't keep up with their needs and I donated all to an avid keeper who drove many miles to come get them.
Have you ever read up on what it takes to breed them in captivity? OMG what a process it is and the few that are able to do it have my total respect given what it takes.
The limited resources for research I had told me only one species needed salt water, which I had one of each anyways so I provided marine salt for him too. I actually loved that they ate anything, made sure their food had calcium powdered on it too. Maybe that's changed now that both species in the hobby need saltwater. I love that things are always improving.
I couldn't buy a lot of natural climbing stuff so I'd make popsicle stick jungle gyms for them to climb. Tight sealed lid for humidity and not escaping lol
I just wish I could have given them more space. I read that the 10 gallon was fine, but learning nowadays it most definitely was not. I don't think I'd get back into them now, not due to lack of interest but due to lack of space lol
I do happen to have some old photos of the two I had. The smaller guy was way more outgoing and active, the other much more shy. Both gentle, never was pinched.
