HCA: Hermit Crab Association

My medium PP has been digging for about 1.5 months. Three weeks ago she dug down and hasn't resurfaced since. I'm sure she's molting as she was getting very ashy looking before she vanished. I don't smell any dead crab smell, so how much longer should I wait to check on her? I have also had a med/large down since the same day. I bought them both on the same day and they go down to molt the same day. Is that normal?

I"m no expert as I've only been crabbing a month, but...I have read the heck out of these boards, and MANY people have reported molts taking a couple of weeks, to a couple of MONTHS to complete. If you're crabby's only been down for 3 weeks, I think you are still welllllllllll within a reasonable window and just give her more time!

Interesting how your crabs went down together though! Maybe they worked out a deal in advance, LOL! Maybe one could tell the other one was getting ready (all the digging) and decided "Well if she's going to be down, I might as well too!"

Keep us posted, and I"m sure someone else will be along shortly to ease your fears about the length of time of this molt!

Trysha is totally correct. Average time for a medium would be 4 weeks but 3 months at the longer end of normal. It's not uncommon that they go down at the same time, we're not sure why. You can have mass molts where almost all or all the crabs are down molting.

Hi! I am fairly new to this crabbing scene as well. We started with two and now have seven. The first two went down at the same time, but only one molted and quite successfully! I currently have 3 down under! They have been under for about 3 weeks now as well and we are all impatient, but since we know our first took about a month (he is a small), we know we just have to sit it out.

My personal opinion is that they may somehow be "in tune" with one another's molting time and go down to molt together.

Hang in there!

When Simon (my small PP) molted, he took about 4 weeks

Theodore did a surprise molt on my after i deep-cleaned the 20L. I accidentally dug him up right after he got done molting to move him into the 55 gallon, so that was a 2 week molt! He's still destressing though, so I guess he isn't totally done "molting" yet, but the hard part is done

But yeah, the time it takes for a crab to molt varies greatly on their diet, salt consumption, and tank conditions. So just be patient, if he's down for more than 2 months, I would start to worry

One of my mediums took more than eight weeks to finish molting, and then came up fine. My small took four weeks.

My mediums usually take about 4-6 weeks to molt. But it all depends on the individual crab. Some mediums will dig down, molt immediately, and resurface inside of a few weeks. Others will dig down & not start to actually molt for several weeks.