HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I had 3 crabs down at the same time about 7-8 months ago. The 2 larger crabs came up after about 7 weeks. The 3rd crab, which was a very small crab has yet to come up. Well today I did some digging (I know I'm not supposed to) and found his shell empty. Did not find him in the dirt anywhere. Is it possible that while the 3 crabs were all down together the 2 larger crabs could have eaten him while he was molting?

Thejohnay wrote:I had 3 crabs down at the same time about 7-8 months ago. The 2 larger crabs came up after about 7 weeks. The 3rd crab, which was a very small crab has yet to come up. Well today I did some digging (I know I'm not supposed to) and found his shell empty. Did not find him in the dirt anywhere. Is it possible that while the 3 crabs were all down together the 2 larger crabs could have eaten him while he was molting?

Usually when there is a molt attack, you'll find parts of a carcass away from the shell.

Sometimes when they pass while molting they die while still soft and decompose naturally.

Making sure you have adequate room, deep substrate, and are feeding a wide variety of proteins, veg/fruit, calcium sources, leaf litter will also help prevent molt attacks.

It is also possible that the crab passed during the molt phase and the exo was munched on my other crabs.

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Yes we have very deep substrate. I feed them all kind of different foods from the safe list. He was very tiny so I think that is what happened. I believe he passed and they ate the excess carcass. Just wanted to get other opinions. Thank you.

Thejohnay wrote:Yes we have very deep substrate. I feed them all kind of different foods from the safe list. He was very tiny so I think that is what happened. I believe he passed and they ate the excess carcass. Just wanted to get other opinions. Thank you.

Sorry about your loss. Just wanted to reiterate that substrate should be a minimum of 6 inches or three times the height of your largest crab (whichever is deeper).