Two Electric oranges and a molt!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 8:17 pm

I came back from vacation today after picking up two electric orange MHCs, wow they are expensive (these ones were $14.99). While I put them in the tank I thought one was dead or had molted since it looked like the full hermit crab but it just turns out that my smallest blue leg hermit crab molted!

annopia · Post by **annopia** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 10:30 am

congrats on the newbies! yes, the more rare or exotic ones tend to be a bit pricier, most of my crabs were $2.99 but my c.elegans (electric blue and black striped) was $10. got any pics of them? its hard to get good pics of the MHC, especially the super tiny ones.

congrats on the molt! you might want to keep a document with the days each of your MHCs molt, it can be helpful in picking out when they're premolt. also, you can take the exo out of the water and preserve it, they won't eat it (which i don't understand why but i've had 9 or so MHC molts and none have even hinted at wanting to eat the exo).

Caroline

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:51 pm

annopia wrote:congrats on the newbies! yes, the more rare or exotic ones tend to be a bit pricier, most of my crabs were $2.99 but my c.elegans (electric blue and black striped) was $10. got any pics of them? its hard to get good pics of the MHC, especially the super tiny ones.

congrats on the molt! you might want to keep a document with the days each of your MHCs molt, it can be helpful in picking out when they're premolt. also, you can take the exo out of the water and preserve it, they won't eat it (which i don't understand why but i've had 9 or so MHC molts and none have even hinted at wanting to eat the exo).

Caroline

I did take the exo out, and my ex-biggest one molted just yesterday. I'll try to get pics but no promises. Also why don't MHCs eat their exos?

annopia · Post by **annopia** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:46 pm

i have not ideas on why marine hermits don't eat the exo...perhaps the calcium in it is readily available from coral and other sources? there are many differences in MHCs/LHCs that i find interesting...another would be (you can only notice it really on the bigger ones) the MHCs seem to have much longer, more developed feeding arms (you know, the little ones that go down andt ake the food into the stomach, not the pinchers).

Caroline