HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Like seriously? Not even sure how this one happened.

I saw the nerite shell in the water dish from across the room and new there was trouble since all the shells in the shell shop were accounted for. By the time I got the lid open I saw the crab laying in the water dish naked, and it was the creamy-yellow crab who had been wearing a much larger Mexican Turbo. She was stiff, and plump, and for about a minute I had wondered how she had died - then I realized she was mid-molt! I could just make out where her exo was starting to slide past the new gills.

After what she's been through I have no idea if she'll live. That's a heck of a lot of stress on a crab. I also have to admit it wasn't my finest moment as I was just getting ready to get a shower and finally pass out (been up all night) when I found her, and my hubby was walking out the door to go to work, and I haven't been feeling well in days. I spent a good five minutes in full panic because I had absolutely no idea how to deal with her since she was: naked and stiff, peeling off exo so I didn't want to touch anywhere on her, so plump in the tail that I could have gotten her back into a shell if I tried, my E ISO is currently taken up with my three problem crabs, etc etc.

I finally decided to put her into a storage container with a very thin layer water on the bottom so she would stay moist until she could move again. I placed her into the PP ISO in that container, and buried it to create a dark and warm false cave. (Normally I would make one out of the sand, but I've never had a naked molter.)

Crossing my fingers here that she'll make it, but my gut says no way.

I took some photos when I had gone back up to place a few extra shells in just in case she's able to move soon and can reshell on her own. I thought it was rather fascinating in a very macabre way. I do feel that now I have a better understanding of the molt process and wanted to share with all of you.

It seems that in order to get out of their exo, they pull all of the fluids from the front half of their body into their tails so they can squeeze out of that tight space. I've had naked crabs before so I know what a 'normal' crab abdomen looks like - it's soft and squishy and wrinkly and naturally looks deflated. Now I know why they have all that extra room in their tails - it's for the fluids when they're molting. She does have a 'molt sac' on the side, but like most Es it's tiny and on her little pincher side, and it goes towards the underside of her abdomen. I saw it clearly before I had set her down, and I didn't want to move her again to just get a photo.


The molt sac is behind and underneath that last little leg - it's grey and dusty looking.





Here you can see where the exo is starting to move past the gills. There is some slight noise, like a crackling-burbling, so I'm hoping that's either the sound of her breathing or of the exo sliding off.




Her tail is SO PLUMP. I'm amazed they can stretch that much!

I think your doing a great job, if you can keep the humidity up i think she will make it..You are doing all that i would do.. good instincts crab mom! your using fresh water right?
you might want to put two layers of the plastic canvas so that she is a little more above the water they can over absorb too much water. you dont want her to be in more water then the shell water amount.. or maybe just do that on her front end so that just her tail is in the water?
unless you can see that she is holding herself above the water, it looks like she might be from the photo..
she should rest between spurts of pulsating during the pulsating she will be pushing the exo forward.
are you sure this is a she? i dont see Pleopods but the photos mainly show the right side..pleopods are the appendages that would carry eggs when the females have them.

Yes, it's fresh water and there's not much there, just enough to make the bottom wet. The canvas was what she was hooked to in the water dish. When I realized she wasn't dead I moved her onto it so I could carry her around while I decided what to do with her. (Setting her down on a counter would have been an immediate death from the cats.) Thanks to that canvas I only had to directly touch her once. She's completely supporting herself upright, and even if she falls over sideways the water shouldn't be able to reach up to her gills.

I am a bit concerned about how much time she was frozen in place underwater. It should have been less than one hour (I had just finished up cleaning out the tank for the night and I replaced that water), but crabs have been known to drown in less time than that. I'm still not sure how she got into the dish if she was that far gone into molting.

She does have pleopods, but they are tucked underneath. She was upside down in the water dish so I was able to get a good look when I first fished her out. The angles of the photos are a bit odd since the first container I grabbed had five-inch high sides - I wish I could have safely been able to get more details.

i just had a larger E do the exact same thing! hes fine now. ate all of his exo ecept one leg, but sadly he lost his sheild leg in the molt, so i dont know if he even needed to eat it! i would say just eep doing what youre doing!

That looks profoundly painful. I'm glad humans don't molt. Fingers crossed for you and her that she makes it - she looks like she's in good shape.

I hope she makes it!! You are doing a great job helping her! You are also doing a great job helping all of us to learn more about our crabs.Thanks so much for the pictures and desciptions!!!
Kathy

Kathy Freer wrote:I hope she makes it!! You are doing a great job helping her! You are also doing a great job helping all of us to learn more about our crabs.Thanks so much for the pictures and desciptions!!!
Kathy

I second this! Thanks for sharing! You are doing a wonderful job! Keep us posted!

I'm so very sorry that your baby is worrying you like this. You're doing all that you can to help her out & now the rest is up to her. Some of them have an amazing will to live. Hopefully she will be one of them. All you can do now is wait.
We're all pulling for her. Please keep us posted on her progress. :grouphug:

I should have posted sooner, but I knew by Sunday afternoon she had passed. The smell was very strong. Aside from the 3 that Sue has offered to take in, I'm down to 6 Es now. (There used to be 16.)

I took some autopsy photos if anyone is interested. There were wounds on her abdomen, so I believe she was injured when the shell was stolen. I'm not sure if that's what killed her, or if she had already drowned when I found her. (I'm leaning towards drowning.)

Very sorry.

So sorry she didn't live!One of my E's, who is my 3rd ever crab and has been here for about a year and a half has gone down for her first molt. I am hoping all will go well.I find that the E's seem to wait longer to molt and can't seem to find shells that they are happy in.She ran around frantically for a week before she went down.Fingers are crossed for her!!
Kathy

I'm so sorry for your loss

You did what you could. Thanks for posting the photos. Not all will appreciate them but ive been going over them for about 15 mins now.. You see the red lines in the body where the tail starts to attach? that is all stress where she was having problems pushing off that exo. She may of gone to the water in order to help get the exo off but i think she just didnt have the strength to push off that exo. For some reason. Her molting sack is nice and full so she must of taken in lots of salt water before she attempted to molt. Things that sometimes cause that would be humidity, but i know you are on top of that, not enough oils in the diet and i know you feed very well too. I think you said her shell was stolen? that alone could of caused the stress to mess with the hormones enough to through off the molt. Im just not sure why the crabs are being found while molting by other crabs? Or why they are surfacing? I have seen your tank photos and your substrate is plenty deep. I believe you are using mostly sand and that should be giving them the insulation they need from each other. Is the substrate becoming dried out in any areas at any time? That is the only thing i can possible come up with. i think your a great crab mom and are doing a great job. This was defiantly out of your hands. You have some great Crab anatomy photos of a female compressus even showing a molting sack. I just wish i could tell you more. The gills of the crab have very little damage so i dont think its a over all humidity problem or they would be showing dried edges and scaring. The body does look as if it has soaked up to much water so i agree with your assumption that she drowned. Other then the stress pulls in the location where she would pulsate to push off the exoskeleton and the few tail cuts that prob happened losing her shell she looks like she was a healthy crab. im going to forward the photos to a couple people that know way more then i if its ok with you?

Sure Sue! Any ideas would be appreciated.

I think they were being found by one of the three crabs I've Isoed, possibly all of them. The 30 gallon (with the five Es) has been beautiful for the past week - no destruction or major tunneling. However, the 10 gallon Iso with the three medium Es is looking like swiss cheese that's been put through a blender! I'm starting to think now that it wasn't that they were hunting the molters down so much as they were just constantly disturbing them and running into them. I'm going to upgrade them to a 20g tall so they can safely work off their energy until the weather breaks and it's safe to ship them (if you still want them, Sue).

I think what happened is that she'd been chased away from molting too many times. It would explain why I only lost one of the teeny Es - they molted so quick that there was little risk to them. The other five crabs have been medium or large. If she's been needing to molt for a few months and hasn't felt comfortable or safe doing so then that could have caused her major problems.

And it was the tiniest E in the tank who stole her shell - a crab that was at least a third of her size. There had to have been something terribly wrong for him to have been able to just take it like that! Since I didn't see it happen I have to wonder if she was already immobile or dead when it was taken. It would explain why his empty shell was at the bottom of the water dish.

Yes, im open to rehome them when your ready.. As for the photos ill forward them. It takes some time before i get any answers but ill let you know what is said. i wanted to ask you before i sent any off. Sounds like you have lots of diggers. They have plenty of humidity above ground and lots of places to hang out and hide but still dig. Do you have any drift wood or log type items that they can dig shallow burrows that stay in place to go in and out of? burrows that they can return to? They end up all using each others burrows but i find if you can make a place that they can do that it might mean less digging.. Ill look for more answers..