HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I don't know if this should go in emergency or not. But I adopted a new hermit crab a couple of days ago. When I got her I didn't see any mites, and I definitely would have noticed them. Now recently after emerging from sleeping in the moss pit for a few days I notice these bugs on her. But I have seen mite pictures of hermit crabs and the bugs do not look like that. They were a lot bigger and white. I only saw them twice before they went deeper into the shell. I never saw them since. I checked my other crab and I did not see any. From my 5 years of crabbing I've never had experiences with mites so this may be my first time. Thoughts?

Ok :/

Are they clinging to the crab? Like on the joints, antennae, mouth, etc?

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Thanks for responding. They are not clinging at all, they run on him as well as inside the shell. They vary in sizes and are all white

AwesomeHermit wrote:Thanks for responding. They are not clinging at all, they run on him as well as inside the shell. They vary in sizes and are all white

You're welcome.
I'm not great with mite identification, but it sounds like they may be food mites, which are harmless. Food mites are usually white/cream/gray in color according to the HCA mite page. If they were clinging to your crabby's parts, then I'd be more worried.
You can temporarily avoid giving fresh foods to try and keep their numbers down. You can also spot clean the surface, and maybe take out the moss pit, where it's nice and humid and warm (the mites like that). This may help curb their population a bit.

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