molting inside shell?

[Guest]

I'm not sure if this would go here or in the 'molting' section. I apologize if this is in the wrong category :/

There's a crab named "Tiny" that we've had for about 2 or more weeks now. Tiny is one of seven crabs in the crabitat (Scuttles, Itty, Bitty, Teenie, Kiff, and Chi are the others). All of the crabs are relatively small except for Kiff. We had another crab named Skittles, but he unfortunately died very suddenly. The only thing we can figure out through the sources we've asked is that he died due to stress from the PetSmart we got him from

Well, moving along, when we brought home Teenie, Tiny, and Kiff, Teenie quickly changed shells. Tiny followed in step by changing into Teenie's old shell. This was rather silly since the shells were the exact same size, but who am I to question a crab?

The next day, Itty molted (our first time experiencing a molt!) and we flipped out at first because we mistook the exoskeleton for a 'dead crab' in the tank. We soon found a squishily pink Itty in a bran new shell She somehow did this in the course of an afternoon (which I'm told is VERY unusual for a hermit crab). A few days after that, Scuttles started acting peculiar, so we isolated him and he molted about a week later underneath the sand. We have yet to witness anybody molting, but so far things seem to be going rather smoothly as far as our molting crabs are concerned.

Getting back to Tiny, we know when we first got Tiny that he had all of his appendages. But about a week ago I noticed that Tiny was acting weird. He looked rather pale and was hiding quite often inside one of the larger shells that we had put into the crabitat for Kiff to change into. When I took Tiny out to examine him, I noticed that the top part of his tiny claw was missing.

We didn't know if he was able to easily get food, so we put some peanut butter mixed with some mushed up broccoli and fish on his claw and let him lick it off to ensure that he was eating.

I then put him in an isolation area for a few days. During that time he didn't budge. He wouldn't dig under the sand or do anything except sit inside Kiff's spare shell (which we put inside the isolation tank since he seemed rather comfortable and safe in it).

We finally put him back inside the tank to see how he would fair. He started moving around more after that and was constantly taking trips to the water dish.

Fast forward to earlier this week - I noticed when I was putting something new into the crabitat that Tiny was just sitting there, not withdrawing into his shell whenever my hand passed over him. This was highly unusual and I was afraid he was dead at first (since Skittles looked very similar when he died). I picked him up and noticed that he was moving around just fine - but for some reason he couldn't withdraw into his shell! He could get his eyes inside of the shell, but couldn't get his legs in!

I found this to be quite odd because I'm quite sure he fit into that shell before. Well, yesterday I noted that now his eyes won't withdraw into the shell anymore. We have PLENTY of shells his size lying around, but he won't change into any of them! He goes up to the shells and checks them out by putting his head inside of them, but then he won't change. At one point, he was wearing one as a 'hat' when he was settled down to sleep...!

When I get close to him, he 'flattens' his eyes (which is *so* sad to see! It's like he's saying, "please don't hurt me... I can't withdraw!"). Needless to say, I've been trying to leave him alone just out of fear that I might be scaring him.

Today when I was home for lunch, I noticed that he was sitting near the small bowl of salt water that we keep in the tank for Scuttles (who is, as far as we can tell, an Ecuadorian crab). He was hanging VERY far out of his shell to the point that we could see the first two 'nubs' from the legs that hermit crabs used to hold onto the inside of their shell.

My husband and I stood there and watched him for quite some time. He appears to be alive - he's moving his legs and every now and then will run an antenna over his eyes as though he's cleaning them. But he looks like he keeps moving further and further out of the shell!

I told my husband to keep an eye on him the rest of the afternoon because I suspect we might have a naked crab on our hands by the time I get home at this rate!

Is it possible that he's molting inside of the shell? o.O

[Guest]

I think maybe filling out the help template might help but for now I am not sure.

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?

[Guest]

Sure!

1. Substrate used?
play sand (that's been sterilyzed) mixed with some calcium sand

2. Humidity % level in crabitat?
between 75 and 85 degrees

3. Temperature of substrate in crabitat?
Not sure....

4. Temperature of crabitat?
between 72 and 80 degrees

5. Location of gauges?
Is that the thing that tells me what the temperature is? That's located inside the crabitat up on the back wall.

6. What is your heat source?
an under-the-tank heater

7. Types of water available?
A large, shallow dish full of fresh, declorinized water and a smaller dish full of decloninized salt water

8. Dechlorinator used?
I forget the name at the moment... I just switched to a new brand the other day after someone suggested it to me... I think it's Reptisafe or something like that?

9. What do you feed?
Oh gosh... plenty. We've recently put some dried baby shrimp in there and they've gone nuts over it. We also have something called 'hermit crab treat' that's a mixture of powdered pineapple and other stuff. We also put fresh veggies in there (usually carrots, snow peas, and broccoli) and on occassion we'll put a small piece of cooked chicken or fish in there.

10. How long have you had the crab in question?
About 2-3 weeks now.

11. Do you know the species?
Tiny's a PP.


12. Do you bath them, if so how often and with what?
With the crab in question - I've given him only one bath since we got him. He's willingly climbed into the large water dish to give himself a bath at least once that I've seen. The bath water we used when we bathed him outside of the tank was dechlor water mixed with Stress Coat. Inside the tank it's just the regular dechlor water mentioned above (with the ReptiSafe stuff)

13. What type of housing are they in? Tank? Plastic box?
tank (with a small critter keeper used in isolation cases).

14. What size is your tank?
20 gallon. Actually, it's more like two 10 gallon tanks put together... it's the surface size of a 20 gallon, but the depth of a 10 gallon. I'm not sure what those are called.

15. How many crabs are in the tank? What size are they?
5 tiny crabs, one fairly small crab, and one medium-to-large sized one.

16. How deep is the substrate?
Not sure about actual numbers, but deep enough that all but one of the crabs could completely bury themselves if they wished to. I'm not sure if Kiff could... we're planning to go get some more sand this weekend so that we have enough in there to ensure that she can bury herself if need be.

17. If you take your hermies out daily to exercise, do you mist their gill area first?
We haven't taken them out of their tank for very long lengths of time (unless we were doing 'bath time'), so no... though we do have a mister.

18. Has there been any cleaners, paints, perfumes, air fresheners, candles, or smoking near the crabitat?
we have a tea light thing on the nightstand in the room that the tank is in where we burn scented oil. The tank has a lid on it, though, so I don't think that the smell can get in there...?

19. How often do you clean/sterilize and how?
Since we've gotten the tank, we've cleaned it completely out once. We'll be doing that again this weekend. When we clean it out, we put the crabbies into a temporary container (usually a critter keeper) while we clean it out. We dump out the dirty sand (after having some sterilyzed sand on hand), and we spray it down with water and wipe it down with a towel.

We tend to wipe the sides down with a dry washcloth on a daily basis (it's just to 'dry' the sides since they get foggy due to humidity).

20. Any unusual odors?
Not really. We had REALLY bad odor when poor Skittles died (which the tank was cleaned out immediately afterwards) and when Itty molted, but I don't smell anything out of the ordinary in the tank.

21. Do you use sponges? Are they rinsed daily with dechlor water? Are they exchanged every 2 days for a sterile one?
We don't use sponges in the tank itself. We'll use them in the critter keeper with our isolated crabs since Scuttles had a very bad habit of digging underneath the water dish and tipping it over when he was in isolation for molting. We changed it on a daily basis by squeezing all the water out and soaking it in dechlor water. We have 2 sponges, so we swapped them out every now and then.

22. Do you feed fresh food? When do you remove it?
Sometimes. We tend to mix it in with their hermit crab food. We remove it about a day later. We try to put the food in there in the evenings and remove it in the mornings, but sometimes it doesn't get removed until the afternoon.

23. Are your hands clean before handling?
They tend to be, but come to think of it, I really haven't paid much attention.... eek o.O I'll make a note of that.

24. Has there been anything new added to your crabitat recently?
The crabitat was relatively un-changed for about 1-2 weeks after we got Tiny. Then, on Sunday, I put in two little 'hiding places' for the smaller crabs and a larger area that all of the crabs (especially Kiff) could fit under. Tiny has since then bounced from being in Kiff's spare shell to being under the big structure, to switching and going into one of the small areas. We don't see him out moving all that much, but he's constantly in a different place when we look in the tank.


Hope this helps!

[Guest]

I think your tank conditions are very good, but I think that calci sand might smell bad if it gets too wet because its happened to me. I think for now make sure noone bothers him. I would also put some high energy stuff by it. How about organic maple syrup? Also I would just keep showing it some shells and eventually he might change. That is all I can think of so far.

[annopia]

hmmm...this is quite odd. crabs do molt with their shells on normally, but they usually dig down and bury to do so (surface molts can be a bad sign). in a surface molt the crab doesn't get too big for the shell like that, since the abdomen size doesn't change, they simply push off and out the outer exo of their body. if the "eyes" you see are hollow, its a good sign that thats the exo and he's molting.

do you have shells in the exact same style as his, just bigger? sometimes crabs can be very picky. being in a too small shell isn't a danger in and of itself, its more the fact that they don't get the same protection from it as they should.

so it seems that he's getting bigger inside the same shell? that could possibly (and i'm just throwing out ideas here) be due to premolt, since crabs build up fluid behind the old exo and it "swells" before it comes off.

Caroline

[Guest]

Thanks! I'll try the maple syrup and see if that works.

Yeah... the one shell he keeps sticking his head in would be PERFECT for him to fit into (the one that Itty originally wore when we brought her home from PetSmart)! I keep standing there wondering why he hasn't gotten inside of it yet. For some reason he's hesitating. He'll go over to it and move it around, sticking his head and feet in, but he never flips out of it and enters. I'm not sure why. :/

[Guest]

We have one shell that's identical to the one he's wearing (except it's pink and the one he's wearing is blue) and then we have about 6 shells that are just slightly bigger (they look like they'd fit him perfectly if he moved). The rest range anywhere from a bit larger than that to way too large for him.

[annopia]

what shape are the available shells openings? are they painted or natural?

Caroline

[Guest]

Now I wish I was home so I could take a picture of the shell openings.

Um.... there's a variety. The one in question that he keeps playing with has a very wide opening (and is a natural white color). There are a few that have smaller openings. There's only one painted shell in the shell tank (a bright blue shell that's got some speckles on it). That one's gotten passed around the tank quite a bit between Itty and Chi.

The shell that Tiny's currently in doesn't look like a 'painted' shell, necessarily.... it's a solid color, but it just has a different appearance to it than your typical painted shell. Same goes for the pink shell that he moved out of the day after we brought him home.

The other shells are white or brown in coloration.

[annopia]

i would recommend taking any painted shells out of the tank...the problem with them is that when the paint inevitably flakes, the hermies can eat it and get very sick or die. i tried to rescue a crab once who had eaten some paint chips from her flaking shell and lost most of her legs from the stress, but she didn't make it .

the reason I ask about the shape of the opening is that different species prefer different types of shells. PPs, for instance, prefer shells with round openings, like turbos and murexes. Es prefer the more oblong D shaped openings like tiger moons, whale eyes etc. knowing these preferences can help you get shells your crabs are more likely to wear. before i found out that crabs even HAD preferences in stuff like this, i got very few shell changes, and my money was spent less effectively. now i order online shells in their size and species preference.

Caroline

[Guest]

Thanks for the help. I removed the painted shell from the tank upon getting home.

I'm afraid Tiny didn't make it, however. I'm still not sure...

See, Saturday Afternoon we noticed Tiny hanging WAAAY out of his shell. The portion sticking out of the shell was dead.... it wouldn't respond when we opened the top of the tank (like it normally would) or when water was sprayed around the tank to help the humidity. We could, however, see a gel-like leg moving around from behind the shell and the dead torso was wiggling as though something was behind it trying to push it away. We got VERY excited that Tiny was molting.

Throughout the day we would go in and watch as he was wiggling like he was going to come out. Then about 6pm, he quit moving. By midnight we noticed that Chi and Kiff kept going over there. At one point we came in to catch Chi sitting on top of Tiny's shell! She was prompty relocated to the other side of the tank.

We decided since we couldn't watch what was going on when we were asleep, we should do something so that the other crabs couldn't get to him. So we finally ended up getting a scoop and scooping up the sand underneath tiny and gently put him down on top of some sand in the Critter Keeper. We then placed some shells that he could fit into in the tank in case he needed to change when he molted.

But we haven't noted any movement since about 6pm Saturday. My husband swears that Tiny moved positions in the Critter Keeper, but I really can't tell. The only thing weird that I've noted is that the eye stalks seem to keep changing positions. Sometimes I notice the eyestalks drooping and then this morning I noticed they were perked upwards. They still won't react to movement around them, but I'm not sure what's going on.

This morning we found that there was an odd smell in the Critter Keeper. It's still arguable as to whether or not it's the 'death smell', however. It doesn't yet smell like what Skittles smelled like when we found him dead. I'm just not sure if he's dead or not. We're going to wait until it starts to smell unmistakably of death before we do anything drastic like bury him. But I'm just wondering if something went wrong during the molt.

I'm not sure if it helps, but it looks like the torso right before you reach his stubby shell legs is just hanging by a thread. Looking at this and being a bit ignorant as to how crabs molt, I have a hard time figuring out how he would be able to pull a complete head out of there if he indeed was still alive.... :/

[Guest]

Well, I think it's official. When I came home from lunch the stench was more like that of a dead fish Something went wrong during the molt... maybe because he had issues with missing most of his little claw, he wasn't able to eat enough before molting. Who knows? At least we tried....