HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Just found him dead today. :( He was in that position for 2-3 days all together. It's been a few weeks, maybe a month since he molted. I was afraid he was going to surface molt, but I guess not. It looks like his abdomen was turning black/dark gray as well. Do you guys think I should worry about my ...

Okay, I got a couple pictures of him earlier today and he was still in the same spot as yesterday but he was sitting out of his shell. He curled back up when I came close to the tank, and has stayed like that for a while. Now that I could get a better look at him today there's a couple of other dark...

My hermit crab is usually a gray-ish color, but today I noticed the tip of his leg was turning black. I read in the archives that it meant his leg was dying, but I don't know why it would be dying? Does that mean he is dying? Could he have an infection? My other two crabs are buried down/molting, sh...

Thanks for replying -- it was actually a false alarm, and he came back up today. I guess he was just tunneling for a bit, but I know he's gonna molt soon so I'll get the substrate replaced in an hour or so. Sorry if I'm wrong, but I thought any mold/bacteria in the tank didn't harm the crabs? Or is ...

My tiniest crab, who is about the size of a quarter (including shell) has just dug down to molt in substrate /I/ think is too wet. There's a thin layer of water on the bottom of the tank that I'm not sure is normal, but it's not enough to drown in or even drink out of. (My friend says that's not nor...

Okay, I bought some tuna yesterday and decided to try it out last night, but when I was replacing my crab water I noticed both of my other two crabs buried down to molt, too. I'm convinced all my crabs started preparing to molt at the same time and one just went down before the others. But my substr...

I'm boiling some eggs for the others, do you think if he did get out, a plate of eggs would be "smelly" enough? I can also rehydrate some free dried krill and put a small amount in each room, but I wouldn't be able to keep that out for more than half an hour because everyone will complain about the ...

Gah, I had a whole thing here but then it deleted it when I tried to post it. I'm not posting my crabitat details because I don't think it's important for this situation. Two days ago I noticed my substrate (pure coco fiber) was wetter than normal. Not wet enough to have puddles, just wetter-than-no...

I'm in Texas, thankfully the hurricane didn't make it this far out, but the morning before it hit my Mom woke me to tell me Hermit, my blind crab, had found his way to the top of his hut. He stayed up there awhile, and I was afraid he had gotten stuck and couldn't find his way back down ( he'd recen...

I understand now. Thank you for the information!

I don't currently have any sand in my tank, and haven't for awhile. It's pure coco fiber.I I also only boiled them in dechlorinated water, because I forgot I was supposed to do it in salt water. By the time I remembered they were already checking them out so I assumed it would be fine and left them....

My green turbo shells are fading to this weird white/gray color. At first I thought it was because the shells kept falling into the water bowls and staying wet for too long, but today my crab's shell, which was a faded green color yesterday, is now more white. I have no idea how it would've faded th...

Hi all! No, from what I could see the mites weren't on the crabs themselves, but we wanted to make sure we got rid of any eggs/larvae that might've gotten stuck to them. We've bought some cheesecloth and we're going to put it up in the morning. We haven't seen anymore gnats near/around the tank (we'...

This morning when we went to change out their "snack" (some egg, all three crabs had gone under to molt so we didn't think they were going to come up for food but we wanted them to have something just in case) there was a gnat on one of their food bowls. We're thinking it came to the stinky egg whic...

Thanks for all the help, but unfortunately he's dead. He never moved from the position we sat him in, and the death smell stunk up the tank. We think he might've been dead all along and had fallen out of his shell. Thank you for all your help, guys.