HCA: Hermit Crab Association

One of my new larger crabs just successfully molted (yay!!), but he seems to be acting like he is "blind" - he is creeping along sooo slowly, and using his feelers/antennae an awful lot, tentatively placing one "foot" in front of the other. Not at all like the school's crab which is super fast all of the time and very agile. His eyes seem a bit strange, but I am unable to see them clearly because it is dark. I am not sure if he is maybe missing an eye or something?! Anyway, just wondering if anyone has any insight into this. Thanks a bunch!

if there a problem, i'm pretty sure it would be unrelated to eye problems. i have had several one eyed crabs, and they were just as quick and adventurous as my crabs with two good eyes. i doubt problems with both eyes would significantly hinder the crab, but i haven't really seen a crab who had problems with both eyes. its possible that he had to come up from his molt before he was quite ready (perhaps another crab disturbed him), but you'd really need to get a good look at him to tell for certain. if he has come up too soon, there is a possibility that his exo will still look soft, or not as dark as it should.

annopia

A couple people have had crabs come up with a shrunken eye from molt problems, so that might be the case. Or he may have had a disturbed molt, and isn't quite at ease yet. The slowness might be another thing, is there plenty of protein and calcium? Crabs need a boost of high mineral food after molting to make up for all the nutrients and energy they lost during the molt.

What should I give them for protein? I have only been offering Surf N Turf from the Hermit Crab Patch, but only like a pinch or so....I do have mineral powder from there too, but again, only sprinkling a tiny bit on their food.

Chicken, turkey, shrimp, fish, meat basically Theres dried shrimp and plankton you can buy that might work well for the crabs in the school since it won't go bad

I just made them chicken and scrambled eggs, but I was thinking that they don't ever eat cooked meat in the wild, so is it really okay for them to eat?

Definately, most people here (including me) Cook crabby meat before serving it to keep the bacteria and food poisoning out of the tank. Also cleaning cooked meat is alot easier then cleaning raw squishy meat