Aura's Ark

11/05/2025

Here I go again...🤣😅

Most people don’t realize that selling real hermit crab food is illegal.

The laws that govern pet food were never written for animals like ours.

All animal food in the United States falls under one system; the Association of American Feed Control Officials, or AAFCO. They decide what species are recognized, what ingredients are allowed, and how every product must be labeled and licensed. It’s a structure designed to ensure safety and consistency.

But AAFCO only recognizes certain animals, and if they dont have a nutrient profile recognized, the dietary requirements default to dogs. There’s no legal category for hermit crab food.

To get a feed license, every ingredient has to come from AAFCO’s pre approved list, and that’s where the system truly fails.

The list was built for mammals and birds, not crustaceans. It doesn’t include chitin from exoskeletons, coral calcium, leaves; the very things hermit crabs rely on for survival.

So if you follow the law, your product is nutritionally meaningless. If you meet the animal’s needs, you’re out of compliance.

That’s why small makers call their products "Treats" or "Suppliments" But by law, anything intended to be eaten by an animal is feed, and feed must come from a licensed, inspected commercial kitchen; not a home, not a hobby space, not anywhere near pets. Each recipe and label has to be approved before it can legally cross hands. The system simply wasn’t built for small, specialized care.

Meanwhile, large companies can sell standardized diets that meet regulations but endanger the animal’s health.

The solution isn’t to ignore compliance; it’s to update it.

We need feed laws that acknowledge exotic species and allow natural, species specific ingredients to be legally defined and tested.

Compliance shouldn’t be the barrier, it should be the path forward.

Until that happens, the best thing we can do is be transparent. Show what’s in our mixes. Explain our process. Educate others. The goal isn’t to work around the system; it’s to build one that finally recognizes the animals that live beyond it.

11/03/2025

Well... everyone said my little project was a disaster idea.. that i ruined the filter, that it wont start... but it did!

Now let's see if the rest of the things the internet critics agreed on will happen:

Burn out the pump
Start a house fire
Kill all my fish

🤣 Im more worried its gonna peel.

Either way, I cant access the impeller housing. So i'm gonna be ripping this all out within 6 months anyway :D

I already have ideas with my next version. But let's make this one cute for a while..

Next steps; plants, moss, and removing the ugly silicone

I want to make the lid look like rock too. Maybe with some live moss 🤓

11/02/2025

Hey guys! Now that halloween is over, I'm able to post stuff for the holiday season! (I am not okay with posting about the holidays before Halloween!)

Our ornaments are back!
Unfortunately, we will not be doing a release of 25 days of crabmas this year. Its just too much work for the small price, and I dont want to raise the cost on you guys. If youd like a custom 25 days of Crabmas, let me know, I can definitely still do that!

This is the Pumkin Patch kit!
Bring a pumpkin patch directly to your crabitat because your crabs can’t go on hayrides or wander through the fields themselves. This gives them the next best thing: the scent, color, and texture of fall, all in their own space.

Mini Pumpkins - These come straight from a local farmers market, where they’re grown completely untreated. Most mini pumpkins sold in stores are grown for decoration, not eating, and are often coated with pesticides, waxes, or sealants to preserve color and texture. The mini pumpkins in our kits are different, and safe for your crabs to enjoy all season.

You can place them directly in the habitat as is or carve them first to give your crabs a head start! Once the pumpkin starts to sour, remove it.

Timothy Hay - No Pumkpin patch is complete if its not covered in hay. The crabs love digging through it.

Winter Squash Balls - These are freeze dried scoops of winter squash! They are about an inch across, so they're rather large. This kit comes with 2. They can be fed whole or broken up. They are similar to a cheerios texture. My grandma uses her fancy freeze dry machine to make these!

Sphagnum Moss - Dehydrated moss straight from Alaska forest. Its throughly washed and hand sorted before dehydrating. This is not clump moss.

I only have 6 available right now, so get em while they're hot! I hope to grab more mini pumpkins from that nice family soon! :D

10/26/2025

You don’t have to be loud to make a difference.

You don’t need a platform, a booth, or a script.

You just need to care enough
to tell someone else why it matters.

Because change doesn’t necessarily start in courtrooms or campaigns
it starts in living rooms,
in comments under a post,
in classrooms,
in the way a child learns from your example.

The truth is, the world changes
when ordinary people stop treating compassion
like it’s extraordinary.

You don’t have to save everything.
You just have to reach one person.

Make one mind pause,
make one heart soften,

make one creature’s life a little better
because you cared enough to try.

That’s advocacy.
That’s what moves the world forward.
not the noise,
but the quiet, relentless kindness
of people who keep showing up.

Every time I do an event, I forget what it’s like.
I brace myself for the noise, the blank stares.

But that’s never what happens.

Every single family that came to our room yesterday listened.
Not the polite kind of listening;
the real kind,
the kind where you can see the gears turning,
where a kid’s eyes widen at the idea of a crab older than them,
where a parent whispers, “I had no idea.”
They leaned in. They asked questions.
They wanted to know what safe sand was,
why painted shells were bad,
what crabs eat,
how long they live when someone actually cares.

They cared.

I watched people’s expressions of shock when they saw how big shelley was. I watched curiosity shift into respect.
And in those moments, I remembered why I do this.

This isn’t about preaching;
it’s about connection.
It’s about sparking that quiet “oh”
that changes how someone will see these animals forever.

Every family left knowing something new,
and i beliveve that’s how the world changes.
Cause I may not be able to save the world but yesterday, I made a difference in how many people see a very misunderstood animal.
And thats enough for me.

10/24/2025

We'll be showing off our table and putting the crabs in the display tank with you guys!

Get tickets to Hangin' with the Hermies, taking place 10/25/2025. RingCentral Events is your source for engaging events and experiences.

10/24/2025

Did you know the Pacific Ocean is on fire?

Back in 2013, scientists started noticing something strange in the Pacific.
A giant patch of ocean water, thousands of miles across was heating up fast.

They called it “The Blob.”
It wasn’t lava or pollution.
It was just… warm water.
Too warm.

The reason was invisible.
High above the ocean, a huge high-pressure system, nicknamed the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, settled in place and refused to move.
It was like a massive dome of air pressing down on the sea.
That pressure stopped storms and winds that usually stir and cool the water.
No storms means no mixing.
No mixing means no cool water from below resurfacing.
So the surface just sat there, still, calm, and cooking.
The Pacific literally started to bake under its own sky.
And when the ocean overheats, life unravels.
Plankton die.
Fish starve.
Birds wash up on beaches by the thousands.
Corals bleach white.
It’s a silent kind of wildfire that spreads through the food web instead of the forest.

In 2015, The Blob shocked scientists.
They thought it was a freak event.
But this year, it’s back, bigger, hotter, and stretching from Alaska down the coast again.
Some areas are 7°F above normal. This doesnt seem like much, but coral reefs from Hawaii to Mexico are bleaching.
Sea lions and seabirds are at risk.
And the ocean, once again, feels like it’s holding its breath.

High and low pressure systems are part of how the planet breathes.
They’ve always existed; they’re how air moves heat from one place to another.
The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, the dome of high pressure that caused The Blob, wasn’t something humans created directly.
But it’s the strength and persistence of that ridge that ties back to us.

Humans trap more heat near the surface
That doesn’t just warm the air, it warms the oceans, which absorb over 90 % of that extra heat.

The ocean is finally saying: “I can’t hold this much anymore.”

This isn’t about guilt.
It’s about guardianship.
If the air can press down hard enough to change the ocean, imagine what millions of hands could do lifting it back up.
Start small, start local; but start now.

This isn’t just weather anymore.

The Pacific Ocean doesn’t burn with fire,
but it burns all the same.

10/23/2025

10/23/2025

Food for thought:

If we ever want to replace companies like Zoo Med, we have to do more than make good food; we have to make legal food.

Most hermit crab food sellers and small exotic treat shops on Etsy treat their products like “cottage food,” made and sold from home under human food exemptions. But cottage food laws do not apply to animal feed.

Hermit crab food, like every other pet food, is regulated under animal feed laws. That means every state requires some combination of:

A feed manufacturer’s license or registration

Label approval for every formula

FDA facility registration if you sell across state lines

Right now, almost no one in our niche follows those rules except a few sellers on Amazon, and that is why we cannot compete with the big brands.

Legitimacy builds trust
People will not take us seriously until our products look and read like the ones in stores; labeled, registered, and professional.

Compliance opens doors
You cannot sell wholesale, ship nationwide, or list on Amazon without being licensed. Going legal lets us grow instead of staying stuck in hobby scale sales.

If we want to make ethical, science-based hermit crab care the standard, we have to operate like real manufacturers.

10/22/2025

Every hermit crab in a beach shop is there because someone took it from the wild.

Every year, when those shops close, hundreds are left behind, dehydrated, buried alive, or dumped.

When that happens, rescuers step in. It’s never about profit or pride; it’s about compassion. But compassion alone isn’t enough.

If we’re going to save lives and stop this cycle, we need structure, transparency, and unity.

Quiet rescues can be dangerous.
But I believe that mass relinquishments, when done publicly, responsibly, and strategically, can serve both the crabs and the cause.

Why These Situations Are Dangerous
LHCOS warns us for good reason:

Shops restock next year if we make their cleanup easy.

Neglect gets hidden when rescues happen silently.

The trade continues unchallenged when no one reports or documents what happened.

These are real risks. They don’t make rescuers wrong, they make the system broken.
And if we want to fix that system, we can’t just rescue; we have to raise hell while we do it.

Document everything.

Photos, dates, store names, conditions — this becomes evidence for advocacy.

Go public, loudly.

Post what happened, post it in LHCOS, report to animal control, and local news.

Tag tourism boards, local governments, and wildlife departments.

Turn each rescue into awareness.

Use it to educate others about the wild-caught trade, proper care, and how people can help.

Each rescue should lead to formal complaints, petitions, and ordinances.

The end goal is to make these rescues unnecessary.

We need unity, not blame.
We need to protect both the animals and the people who care enough to step up for them.

And we need to remember that saving a life and changing a system aren’t opposites, they’re stages of the same mission.

Janie Groeling , Heavenly Hermit co - we need some names 😈

10/15/2025

10/11/2025

Excited to see you guys at Halloween Trick or Treat town! As always, its being hosted by Alaska Land at the big building (Centennial Center) and our event is going to be up in the BLUE room!

Our event will NOT be the typical handling / photo opportunity, but rather allowing people to see proper enclosures, healthy exotics, and learn things they might not have known about these animals otherwise!

We will be doing an educational display with our hermit crabs! If Shelley the crab is up for it, you'll get to see the largest hermit crabs ive ever seen or owned. Shes likely at least 20 years old. Shes been pretty chill and not very scared of me lately, so I think she'll do well!

Thank you to Slither Inn Reptile Shop for putting on this super exciting event to show Fairbanks how reptiles SHOULD be kept!

The whole park is getting in on Trick or Treat town this year, there's gonna be food trucks, facepainting, BALLOON ANIMALS, games, and even spooky train rides! Definitely worth attending.

10/09/2025

Everyone, meet Sender 💙 (you may remember him as Lucky at Fairbanks North Star Borough Animal Control)

At just four months old, Sender has already picked up sit, come, down, leave it, jump up, off, look, spin, and even a low crawl.

I’d love for this to just be a happy post about how well he’s doing… but I need to pause here and shine a light on something that matters deeply to me.

The shelter is at capacity again. Too many good dogs, cats, hamsters, and rabbits are waiting for homes; the staff can only do so much. Every adoption matters. It saves that animal, and it makes room for the next one who needs safety. Take a peek at the adoptable pets from Fairbanks Animal Control on Petfinder; there are so many

If you’ve lived here long enough, you know it’s true: Fairbanks is animal obsessed. Not just “we like our pets” obsessed, I'm talking full on, can’t stop ourselves insanity.

People here collect every kind of animal you can think of. If it breathes, someone in Fairbanks will try to keep it.

Part of it is cultural; dogs are woven into Alaskan history and identity.
Part of it is survival; winters are brutal, and having animals around makes it feel less dark.
And part of it is just… us. Fairbanks people have this wild streak of “If I can keep it alive, I’ll try it.”

But here’s the paradox: our obsession is also our problem. We don’t always plan ahead.
Loving animals isn’t enough.

Spay and neuter your pets.

Don’t take in more animals than you can reasonably care for.

Stop backyard breeding.

Commit to training, containment, and veterinary care.

Fairbanks will always be animal obsessed, it’s who we are. But if we want to honor that love, we have to back it up with responsibility.

Bringing Sender home wasn’t the most carefully planned decision; it was a leap of the heart. We’d been talking about it for a while, but when I saw him at the shelter, I knew I had to give him a chance. If there was even a possibility he could be a good fit for our family, and that I could give him what he needs, I wasn’t going to leave him there.

I was discouraged from checking the shelters, which blows my mind, because it could have swayed me away from a dog like Sender.

He’s been a handful. He’s a trash dog. He’s fearful. He’s a food thief. But with patience and consistency, he’ll grow into a good canine citizen.

That’s what every shelter animal needs: not perfection, just someone willing to put in the time.

If you’ve been considering adopting, let this be your sign: now’s the time.