Crabs not as active as before?

[meljen]

My crabs are past the one-month mark from the time I adopted them from Petsmart. They were far more active a couple weeks ago (well, MINE was the most active and now he's not as much), but now I don't see them out as much.

The more I think about it the more I think they are trying to hide from me. The first couple weeks we had them, I hadn't ever owned hermies before, so I was hyper worried, lol! I was checking on them ALL of the time, and I had to change their substrate once, and add and remove (and re-arrange) things at least 3 different times. My son's crab (an itty bitty hyper little thing that LOVES to burrow) goes nuts when he sees me. He almost gets angry and dashes off to jump into one of his burrows. My crab used to be out and eating all of the time, but I'd sneak over to check on him a LOT. When he'd see me he'd get startled and go hide in their hut.

SO... I think they try to hide from me until we're all in bed. I figure they probably only come out after all the lights are off. They are in the front room with us where we all spend most of our time. So they might be feeling wary about coming out.

I have seen all of them out and about over the past couple days so I know they're all alive. I also see funny things in the morning... new burrow 'piles', eco earth all over their hidey cave (they can climb on top of it), EE in their silk plant, in their water, and their food strewn all over the place. This morning the moss from their moss pit was everywhere and I saw mine burrowed in it. He's been chilling there all day.

I LOVE hermies, they seem so moody and so fun! I am really thinking they figured out my habits of checking on them all the time.

Do you think so, too?

Even though I have had them for a while, I still worry. I love them so much.

[Rocky]

Welcome to hermies! And welcome to the HCA!
What you're seeing is perfectly normal if food is being moved an holes are being dug, they sound perfectly happy and healthy to me! hermies are nocturnal, so seeing them at all durin the day isn't common for some people
Why did you have to change the substrate? I'm just wondering because some people think hermies are like hamsters and need their "bedding" cleaned every month or so. And they don't at all quite the opposite, actually. People only really do a deep clean if there's an emergency or mass deaths or mites or something like that. Other then that, it's just unnecessary stress they aren't dirty critters at all
Feel free to ask any questions you have on your mind

[meljen]

I had a bunch of things wrong with the habitat... a pine 'half log', wood that was molding, and the substrate was initially eco earth and calcium sand. BIG no-no I found out. So I took it all out and put in fresh EE. I am worried I soaked it a bit too much. But I keep 'smelling' their tank and looking at the sides to make sure I don't see mold or smell bad things.

I tossed the log - and tried boiling/cooking the grape vine wood, but had to toss it because it kept molding. The crabs pouted for a few days after taking the wood out for a second time, lol. But they love their pseudo rock 'cave' and silk plant now.

Thanks for the input! You've helped put my mind at rest.

[Rocky]

Awesome, just checking that you weren't OCD cleaning your crabs
Some people have really bad luck with wood I personally recommend fake wood, or cork bark mine love cork bark, it's pretty cheap and it doesn't seem to mold at all in my tank, where's my grapevine was covered in green slime after a few days (ugh) you could try boiling it in salt water and baking it before you put it in instead of after maybe?
I'm just throwing thoughts out there for ya

[Emily]

Haha, welcome to hermit crabs indeed.
From my own interpretation, this is good. Usually when they get a new environment they familiarize themselves with it, get fairly active and search every nook and cranny. If you were rearranging it, it would explain why they were still active, they got interested all over again and re-searched everything.

Slowing down is usual behaviour when they get bored or when they get calm. Its another way of settling in. Don't freak out, they ARE nocturnal, I mean they won't be so active during the day once they're comfortable. Without pictures or video streams I can't make an other guesses.

Check every little while to see if they're turning brown or grey, this is usually molting behaviour, usually they slow down a lot when they're about to molt. That's normal too. As I said, without high quality pictures of the crabs I can't tell much.

[Jennybecca]

I had a bunch of things wrong with the habitat... a pine 'half log', wood that was molding, and the substrate was initially eco earth and calcium sand. BIG no-no I found out. So I took it all out and put in fresh EE. I am worried I soaked it a bit too much. But I keep 'smelling' their tank and looking at the sides to make sure I don't see mold or smell bad things.

I tossed the log - and tried boiling/cooking the grape vine wood, but had to toss it because it kept molding. The crabs pouted for a few days after taking the wood out for a second time, lol. But they love their pseudo rock 'cave' and silk plant now.

Thanks for the input! You've helped put my mind at rest.

Hi, I just wanted to toss thisin here for you- The pine half log is absolutly fine to keep in a crabitat.

To help prevent mold, soak it in salt water, let dry completly: which you can bake at a low temp in the oven-
This applies to nearly everything. If you cant bake it, then boil it, and if you cant do either, soak it and let dry. The salt acts as mold prevention-

As far as pine goes- do not run out and throw a freshly cut pine branch in there, moderation is key. BUT- those half hidey logs are perfectly fine- infact most crabs will enjoy them They like the OCCASIONAL pinecone too!

[meljen]

Well I wasn't sure about the log, I've heard so many mixed things about some stuff out there, it was just too confusing for me at the time and I would rather be safe than sorry. It honestly didn't give them much hiding space though. I use a 10gal tank, and the log was rather large and wide open on each end. It was their only 'hiding' spot. They have since LOVED the cave I put in there. It's a large one that's meant for reptiles, but it has a secret back door that our tiny one LOVES using to get food (lol), and it has a large entrance and it's deep in there.

As for health/molting. Our med and small crab (talking in size relation to eachother, all of our crabs are fairly on the smaller side) - their limbs look normal. A dark-ish brown. The med one's limbs are a bit more red in color. Our biggest one (mine) has almost white limbs. But I know he's a PP since he has... well... a purple pincher, lol. He's a lot more shy. But he comes out to eat and he loves the moss. I've watched him. His eyes and limbs don't look weird, just kind of faded almost. But not, at the same time.

What's funny is now that I think about it, I believe my hermie has ALWAYS been more of a white color. But I can't imagine him being anything other than a PP since he has the purple claw?

Anyway...

HAHA if *only* I could get a picture! My crabs are SO fast and they are REALLY good at tucking into their shell at lightning speed when they see me. So I doubt I will get a picture any time soon, lol!

Thanks everyone for the input.

*edit* My hermie looks like the white-ish one in this article: http://www.itsnature.org/sea/other/hermit-crab/
(and a LOT like this one, which is labeled as an EE:http://finatics.hubpages.com/hub/land-h ... ide3540878 ... is it possible for EE's to have a purple tint to their pincher, though?)

[Rocky]

It's really not common for Es to be purple there have been some with slight purple on the underside of their legs, but not the bright purple BP. That trait is a giveaway for PPs
All those colours sound PP ish I've noticed that small ones tend to be light pink/white ish (I even had one that was ghostly white, but that was because of poor diet and neglect for the five years that lady had them. And some people get confused when they see a bright orange/red shield leg (the leg that helps cover the entrance to their shell) but the shield leg tends to be a different colour and much larger then the other legs and of course brown is really common with PPs too.
There are a lot of mixed feelings about pine, especialy since no one has been willing to risk their hermies to test it. Since its not great for bugs, reptiles and small rodents we tend to steer clear of it with our crabs. BUT, there are pine trees where these guys come from! And many people have used pine, pine cones and needles in the tank without any problems. The idea we have right now is that dried items like a hidey log and cones and needles are perfectly fine. But fresh stuff isn't, because the aromatics will build up in the tank and the crabs can't escape from it (like they could on the beach) so it could harm them. For me, if it smells really piney it stays away from the tank, but if it's dried out and doesn't smell, im comfortable using it
But like I said, everyone feels differently about it. It's all up to you and what conclusions you've made from reading around and experience