HCA: Hermit Crab Association

63 days down now without coming up and without molting. He's taking "chillin" to a level I've not seen before.

Here is fine with me.

Coconut fiber makes sense but I know for a fact he didn't take anything else with him. He started digging in within 2 minutes of being put into the tank.

Yeah, I can. The broken off tips of his legs are visible, so I know he hasn't molted and he can be seen moving. His antenna are active and he seems energetic.

As the title implies, I'm wondering what is the longest period of time you've had a crab stay down consecutively without molting. I have a new PP in my ISO tank that went down within minutes of being placed in the tank and has been down 45 days straight without molting or coming up for food or water...

Keeping them as pets wouldn't be so bad if people would keep them in a proper habitat and not those overpriced wire cages. I keep an eye out for adoptees in my area but haven't found any. Judging by the cages for sale, I presume a large number of crab are dying off from improper care.

I've taken to rescuing obviously distressed crab from local stores and was wondering what sort of success rates anyone else doing the same may be having. So far, none of the PP's I've brought home have made it but my latest one is looking very promising. He (presumably, because I haven't handled him...

He has a stoic look on his face and I presume he's a sociopath by definition. He'll have to eat food now whether he wants to or not. Other than being in a shell that's a bit larger than what you'd expect for an E, he looks relatively normal, but then that holds true for most serial killers. He's goi...

UPDATE: And then there was one. I've lost all but one E to cannibalism, and Hannibal the Cannibal is all by his lonesome in a 37 gallon 'tat. I hate that he's all alone but he kind of brought it on himself.

My remaining crab simply stay buried during daylight hours. When they do come out, they will either run for cover or slam the door on their shells if they see any kind of movement. If these two don't survive, I'm not going to be heartbroken at this point. I'll gladly repurpose their 'tat for some In...

Thanks for that link. I haven't seen that thread before and found it very interesting and informative. If it's a 'kill or be killed' issue, it seems like there would have been attack on the surface at some point, but who knows. I never witnessed anything more than a kicking match between two crab th...

I'm positive they molted because all of them had tips missing from their legs and no setae. When they came back up, they had new black tips and lots of setae on their legs. There was no flooding and and while the initial mixing of the sub was done with salt water, misting has always been done with f...

I did enjoy their antics when they were up and about but those times were usually around my bed time, so I didn't get to see it often. I'm inclined to agree with your belief about good and bad groups because I have also seen people with E's who are loads of entertainment.

Sounds like reasonable advice on the deep cleans. Since I've never found a live one during a deep clean, I doubt that's an issue this particular time. Regardless of what happens with the remaining two, I'm done with E's. I've read a lot of good things about Indo's, so maybe I'll try a few of those n...

Deep cleaning happens roughy every four months. I had read somewhere that E's need more space but given their small size (the biggest only being the size of a large gum ball), I figured 9 inches of sub wold be enough. Given the stories about how active E's are supposed to be, I'm really surprised mi...