One likes to dig

[Pruimenmoes]

Hi there, i'm relatively new to hermit crabs, they've settled well after almost a year now. however something i've noticed especially in the last 4 months. i have 3 ruggies.

one of my crabs (the largest one) keeps digging?

the other two are usually hanging out, sometimes dig or climb, but this one really digs the whole time.
he's never done digging, he comes up to eat, maybe climb a bit, but then he's digging again. he never digs too deep unless he's molting though.

i've checked tank parameters and temp/moisture everything should be fine (i have temp automated on a switch, between 25-28 on the warm side, cold side becomes 22-23 at most). they have a large tank (140 Liters for 3 ruggies), at least 20 cm of digging space, 25-30 cm of climbing space, fresh water, salt water (changed weekly), and always have fresh fruits/vegetables and everything their diet requires.

is this just a personality trait or is there something wrong?
i feel like im missing something

[I<3Crabo's]

If he is still eating and climbs around then it is probably him just digging to dig. Everything about your tank sounds great.

[curlysister]

I agree that he probably just likes to dig!

[dccrabber]

Hey - I'm very new to crabs! We've had ours for about a week -- 30 gallon tank, for two crabs... multiple caves, bushes, salt and fresh water and religiously keeping the humidity above 80 percent... Both crabs are very shy during the day, but one seems obsessed with digging—he's dug very large holes under the caves and under the bush and spends almost all (human) waking hours in them. He can sometimes be spotted out and about after 7pm or so.

I guess the good news is that when I've checked on them overnight (I've been keeping an eye on them to make sure the temperature and humidity is appropriate, as we've just turned on the air conditioning and I worried it would dry the tank out or cool them off too much), he's out of the mines, but freezes at the first sign of human movement. But over the last few days when we wake up, there is food scattered—a piece of corn cob picked clean, sand pushed into the water bowls (not too much, but what you would expect from a crab walking around and through) and spare shells rearranged. One morning, one of the caves was even over-turned, and I'm assuming it was the digger (because he's rather large and the other is quite small) and, given all the other shells that had been handled, an investigation into whether the cave was actually a shell.

It sounds like from the other comments that he might just be the kind of crab who has big tunnel ambitions and he waits until the lights are out to move around, but the first few days we had him, he was out during the daytime, usually perched in the highest place he could. Is it just him finding his groove, and do you think they'll eventually become less shy or less interested in deep tunnels?

[JoeHermits]

Probably just finding his groove, it’ll become more apparent where he likes to be as time passes


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[curlysister]

Some people do find that with time, crabs become more used to people around the tank.
My big crab will dig a bunch of holes like that when he's getting close to a molt. I moved them into a new tank about a month ago now, and he had been digging all over the place ever since. He has been underground now for about 5 days without coming up, so I think he's going to stay down and molt for a few months now.
And yes, when the big guys dig, they pretty much trash the whole set up!