HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I was just about to go to bed, it was maybe 11:30 and I looked into the tank and saw Coconut in the food dish! She had been under for almost a month now and over the past few days I had been hearing ominous scraping sounds coming from the bottom of the tank... She had been missing a leg since I bought her, and now she has a cute little baby leg But she seems to have shrunk during the molting process I was wondering if there where any behavior differences or things I should be doing with her right after her first molt with me?

Crazy theory: I was just wondering... People have had crabs shrink during the molting process, and my crab seems to have done it after regrowing a leg... Maybe they sometimes shrink because they put more energy towards thee leg instead of growing? *This is just a thought I randomly had last night. NOT saying its true, just speculating.

Yay!!
You may think she shrunk, but you might have just pictured her bigger before. I don’t know?

I’m curious though, do they shrink?

I have heard of it happening... Usually when the crab is unhealthy, but I always fed them tons of fresh and dry foods and they have a good environment, and she is very active and goofy, but she did go under fairly soon after brining her home from the pet store, so maybe she was deficient in proteins. But I've heard sometimes after a molt a crab can look smaller for a couple of days so, maybe its just that. Does anyone else have any guesses? Also, I do have plenty of shells in the tank. Probably around 12-13 at the moment for three crabs.

"For several weeks after a molt a hermit crab can appear to be smaller than before, although as time passes it will normally return to the same size as prior to the molt, or slightly larger. There have also been cases of crabs permanently shrinking from a molt, and we are still unsure why this happens."
Just found this in an older topic. But Clawdia has been moving around under the sub a lot, so maybe there was some crabby interference?

good good



















cotillon