Recently surfaced crab being weird

[theornerycheese]

So my third small Ruggie came up last week in my old tank after molting for approximately 4 and a half months and so after a salt water bath I moved him into the new 70 gallon with my other crabs. I noticed the day after he was "hanging out of his shell" sometimes, and I read through that other thread that they do that to either clean their shell, help cool off or if they're dead. He's clearly not dead, so I assumed it was the other two. I recalibrated my humidity/temperature gauge and it was still reading 78.7F in the cool part, 83F in the hottest part and a humidity gradient of 82-90%. None of the other crabs are acting like him.

I went down at about 1AM to check on him and he was naked for about 3 minutes, rotating a shell around with not a care in the world. He finally got inside the shell so I thought nothing of it. The next day he was running around the tank being all crab-like until I went down again at night and lo and behold, he was naked again rotating a new shell. Now, this was when I was starting to worry. Every other time I watched a crab change shells, they elegantly hurl their body into their new shell and don't actually spend much time out of it. He seemed like he had no idea what he was doing. After being in the new shell for over an hour, I saw him doing that hanging thingy again. After a bit he started moving around the tank, ate and started climbing on stuff. If there's one thing I have an over abundance of, it's turbo shells for small crabs, so he definitely has room to pull his whole body in them.

Now there's three things I think it could be, since I know my tank conditions are good and I know they're eating very well. 1) he's possibly got dirt on his butt and it's annoying him, or 2) his abdomen could possibly be wounded?/sensitive or 3) he's "quirky". I cleaned all of the shells and made sure there was no dirt in any of them and he still did the temporary-nudity-thing-while-perusing-for-a-shell thing tonight. Is my crab just "quirky" or do you think he might be kicking the bucket soon? I didn't want to stress him out so I haven't given him a saltwater bath and I know my crabs are mite-free. I never got a good look at his butt (didn't want to scare him while he was nude), so it's possible he might have had a bad molt or possibly hurt himself when he one of the shells rolled on him while he was switching. Should I ISO him? I believe he is one of the Ruggies I purchased in December and I never saw him much until this week. He'd come up for a few days and then disappear for weeks/months. Also, he gets along fine with the other crabs, apart from being occasionally stepped on by my big guy.

[wodesorel]

It sounds like quirkiness! Nothing you described sounded bad, so he's probably just a weird crab. Most crabs do choose to move fast between shells, but some linger hanging out if there's no danger around.

[theornerycheese]

It sounds like quirkiness! Nothing you described sounded bad, so he's probably just a weird crab. Most crabs do choose to move fast between shells, but some linger hanging out if there's no danger around.

Shortly after I posted that he switched into yet another new shell (taking his sweet time of course) so I was able to peak at his abdomen, which looked freakishly larva-y and alien, but nothing out of the ordinary so you're probably right. I'll keep an eye on him. I'll look into buying some pearl turbo small shells just in case he finds the other ones too heavy.

[mool]

That's a good idea to buy a few pearl only shells. Some crabs favor them even when they are perfectly healthy and some will stay shelled in them when that's all they can carry.

[wodesorel]

What kind of shells are you offering? Usually Tapestry (Petholatus) and Striped (Fluctuosus) are the top choices for PPs.

[theornerycheese]

What kind of shells are you offering? Usually Tapestry (Petholatus) and Striped (Fluctuosus) are the top choices for PPs.

The only small shells I have left are 11 of those generic green turbos, a couple of pink murex and a couple of the striped fluctuosus. The Strawberries moved into the remaining brown tapestry and pearl turbo shells. The brown tapestries do seem to be very popular with my bigger guys so I think I'll need to order some more online. Unfortunately for him, HCP's stock is out until June and Naples doesn't seem to have many 3/4ish opening shells left. Crap. I think he's getting desperate because last night I saw him sporting one of those snail shells Ecuadorians like. He's no bigger than my other Ruggies so I don't know why he's being so indecisive when the shells are all within his size range. Even saw him sporting a 7/8 opening shell, lmao.

Edit: Yay, found some tapestry turbos on Ebay that ship to Canada.