HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hi my name is Mike and i had posted in the general forum about hermit crabs dying after molting. My wife Laura and I are both fairly new to the fantastic pet that hermit crabs make, and have already witnessed 2 moltings. My first molter Jimmy, did a very smooth molt, consumed all of his shell and is now back with the rest of the crabs in the main tank. But today my smaller crab molted and later that day died, what exactly could have caused this and how can i prevent it from happening? Please inform me of this.

Welcome to the HCA. Sorry about your loss. A lot of things can cause a bad molt, from food and water choices, to not proper temps and humidity, to PPS issues. It would really help us help you if you filled out the help template. We'll be kind, I promose, we just want to help you and your crabs not have the stress of another bad molt, if it can be helped.

1. Substrate used?

2. Humidity % level in crabitat?

3. Temperature of substrate in crabitat?

4. Temperature of crabitat?

5. Location of gauges?

6. What is your heat source?

7. Types of water available?

8. Dechlorinator used?

9. What do you feed?

10. How long have you had the crab in question?

11. Do you know the species?

12. Do you bath them, if so how often and with what?

13. What type of housing are they in? Tank? Plastic box?

14. What size is your tank?

15. How many crabs are in the tank? What size are they?

16. How deep is the substrate?

17. If you take your hermies out daily to exercise, do you mist their gill area first?

18. Has there been any cleaners, paints, perfumes, air fresheners, candles, or smoking near the crabitat?

19. How often do you clean/sterilize and how?

20. Any unusual odors?

21. Do you use sponges? Are they rinsed daily with dechlor water? Are they exchanged every 2 days for a sterile one?

22. Do you feed fresh food? When do you remove it?

23. Are your hands clean before handling?

24. Has there been anything new added to your crabitat recently?

1. Substrate used? Sand

2. Humidity % level in crabitat? Not sure

3. Temperature of substrate in crabitat? Not sure

4. Temperature of crabitat? 80 – 84 degrees

5. Location of gauges? Top of crabitat

6. What is your heat source? Heating pad

7. Types of water available? Fresh and salt bath

8. Dechlorinator used? yes

9. What do you feed? Store bought crab meal

10. How long have you had the crab in question? Four months

11. Do you know the species? echiadorain

12. Do you bath them, if so how often and with what? Every week with dechlor water

13. What type of housing are they in? Tank? Plastic box? Glass tank

14. What size is your tank? Ten gallons

15. How many crabs are in the tank? What size are they? 3… now 2, 1 medium 1 large

16. How deep is the substrate? 3 to 5 inches

17. If you take your hermies out daily to exercise, do you mist their gill area first? no

18. Has there been any cleaners, paints, perfumes, air fresheners, candles, or smoking near the crabitat? no

19. How often do you clean/sterilize and how? Depends on if it is dirty, I would say weve cleaned it every month

20. Any unusual odors? no

21. Do you use sponges? Are they rinsed daily with dechlor water? Are they exchanged every 2 days for a sterile one? yes

22. Do you feed fresh food? When do you remove it? Yes, every day

23. Are your hands clean before handling? yes

24. Has there been anything new added to your crabitat recently? Another choya wood =)

I have one that did the same thing-he should be dead by this aft. I have had 2 others that had nice molts and died a few weeks later...........its very perplexing...nothing to indictate a problem in my tank.........
Your tat seems a little too high temp wise--humidity level is a must to have gauges - the gauges should be just above surface level and even multiple gauges benefit so you know all levels of readings
Crabs need a variety of fresh diet - most of us use minimal commercial food if none at all...you can do some research on that here.

Hope this helps with your tat conditions

ok these are some of thing i noticed that could use some looking into and might imporve your next chance of a good molt.

2. You need to know the humidity in you tat it isnt that uncommonn for you heat to be 80 and you humidity to be only liek 60 or the other extremem like 99 both are enough to suffocate your crabs over time

5. Your guages should be just above substrate level this way they are takeing thier reading from down where the crabs are you would be surprised what the differences can be

9. Depending on what food you get most of the crab meals you buy at the store ahve some addatives and and chemicals such as copper sulfate and such that are very bad for your crab and can lead to diffaculty molting.most ppl here try to stay away from about 95% of the crab meals you can look in the care sheets on the right for help on good foods

12. the bathing is a big debate here on this site but MY thoughts on this subject is as long as i provide a water pool deep enough for them to bath themselves then i should not enforce the added stres of being taken out and bathed VS> some ppl saying bathing is very helpful but i would prolly say if you are going to do it once a week is a bit often you might want to drop it to every 3-4 weeks so not to stress em out so much

15. Medium crabs need at least 3 gallons of space to them selfs and large need at least 4 gallons to them self i would suggesting thinking of getting somthing a bit larger to give them adaquate territory.

22. If your feed them fresh food such as vegtable and fruit and meats you should ahve a fiarly easy time getting rid of the crabs meal i talked about easier that way you can ensure mroe sucessful molts. and dependif on what you feed em like colorful food just as bell peppers and carrots you can get more vibrant colored crabs after molts.

24. did you remember to disemfict (salt water boiling or baking all your items before you added new things to the tank?



These re just a few of the things that i noticed you might be able to fix to help your crabs molt more successfull,

BUT like Crabber said it is more common then you think to have several sucessful molts and then a bad one out of no where. Sometimes a crab will not eat enough of the nutrients they need to make it all the way thought thier molt. Or they may not have just been strong enough.

Anyways WELCOME TO THE HCA it's a wonderful place for information and remember to chekc out the crab care sheets on the right they'll help you figure out all the great stuff you can get.