Molting?

[hayleyg10]

Hello, I’ve been away on vacation for the last week, and just got back yesterday. I had someone taking care of my hermit crabs while I was away, just changing the food and keeping the humidity where it should be. However, he did send me a picture of a random hole my crab had dug during the day but he was not inside of it. I know hermit crabs love to dig so it did not concern me much. However I noticed that today my crab was digging in another area near a fake plant decoration/one of the hides. The substrate in that particular area is not very deep, maybe 2 inches so he is not fully covered. There is a spot in the tank that is 6 inches deep in substrate, however he chose to dig down in this shallow spot and is now exposed while in this hole. What should I do? Is he molting or simply just burying as part of their behavior? He almost always buries in his tree hide, or in his coconut hide with moss, however this is unusual for him which leads me to think he could be molting. Will this be stressful for him? Is there anything I can do to make it not stressful? I feel awful because their tank is due for a very thorough clean, and that was on my list of things to do, but now he’s potentially molting so I can’t clean. Is it ok for him? I’ve had 3 or 4 successful molts with him since I adopted him in December and would hate for this molt to go bad. Thanks in advance!!!

[curlysister]

This is why the sub should be at least 6 inches throughout the whole tank. If he's not able to dig and make a cave and be completely under the sub, you will need to treat it like a surface molt, and isolate him from the other crabs. You could use the cut off pop bottle method and watch him for a couple of days to see what he is doing. If he's not molting, you can let him free and then increase your sub depth.