HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Okay, this may not be the right place to post this but I need help with something.

I have recently had 3 crabs complete their molts. Yogi and Jerry completed theirs in a 20G with play sand as the substrate. Boo-Boo was in a 10G with hermit crab sand mixed with some of that soil that comes compressed and will expand when wet. Their diet was exactly the same. When Boo-Boo came up, he was extremely pale.





Yogi and Jerry came back much darker though.






My question is: What else determines their coloring, other than food? I would just like to know why their coloring is so different now when they were similar before.

Thanks!

It could be also determined by UV exposure prior to molting or how easy/difficult the molt may have been for the crab.

Usually, the crabs who have had post-molt problems with me tended to stay lighter, but that is not generally the case (ie. light colors does not necessarily mean ill-health, as long as the shell generally remains rigid).

In the past, some crabbers who had posted here have had hermits change color in the duration of the time they were at the surface (the colors gradually turned darker in a few months - ex. pinkish or blue-ish C. clypeatus just after emerging became their usual darker purple-brown eventually).