HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello!

I know it is a possibility that crabs can be under for long periods of time, but I have serious doubts that TWO of my crabs have been under for almost two years at the same time. I am moving in about a month and need to move my 60g tank that currently has 6 crabs in it.
4 are up, they have been angels and have been up for a long time now, and I am going to move them into temporary homes until I move. The issue with the two that are under is that I really don't want to touch a molting crab. I am 90% positive that they have passed, but I just cannot bring myself to dig for them. Should I just go for it and dig for them?

2 years? I don't think living crabs stay under for that long. Is there a chance that you just haven't seen them moving around?

That is an extremely long time, even for the most healthy crab to be down. It's hard to say if they swapped shells with crabs that were up and the original shell owners went down with new shells. It's always a tough decision to dig for crabs. I would probably leave the crabitat as the last thing to breakdown and move. Move the crabs you have up as soon as you are able, even if they are in a decent size tote for a few days or weeks. That will save more frustration of possibly having to dig for more crabs. When you do go digging be sure to have a few ISO containers just in case. Plan for the worst but hope for the best!

Basically with what motorcrab said ^^ but with a posts of evidence there's only so much time a crab can spend underground before they're forced to come up to the surface and replenish on food and water. The longest wait time is usually roughly 4 months.