After molt behavior

Where we discuss the behavior of our hermit crabs, as in fights, pecking orders, shell swaps, etc. Please post all naked-crab posts in the Emergency forum.
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LizzyH.
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Location: North Carolina

After molt behavior

Post by LizzyH. » Fri Jul 12, 2024 4:11 am

So I have 2 pp’s that I purchased about two months ago. They are currently in a temporary 10 gallon tank and went down to molt within a 3 days of having them. I’ve made sure to keep all tank conditions where they should be during this time. They also didn’t show any signs of fighting or aggression when they went into the tank together and mostly seemed to stay out of each others way.

However, now Percy has come up and has been very active and eating well, but I had a plastic cup covering Sheldon’s air hole he had made when he went down. I woke up this morning and noticed Percy had moved the cup in the middle of the night and pulled out Sheldon’s old shell and then proceeded to completely cover up Sheldon’s Air hole.

I tried to gently dig a little (I know now I probably shouldn’t have done this) to see if I could find a small part of Sheldon so I could make a new air hole for him but couldn’t find him. Is this normal behavior after molting and should I be worried about Sheldon? I will be moving Percy into a 20 gallon tank within a few weeks once I’m able to get everything needed for it.

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curlysister
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Re: After molt behavior

Post by curlysister » Mon Jul 15, 2024 11:36 pm

Crabs don't leave an 'air hole' when they go underground to molt. They back-fill their tunnels. And they often tunnel underground to a different location than where they went underground. There is no need to cover where they went underground with anything, your sub should be deep enough that they have lots of room to dig and molt without other crabs finding them. How deep was your substrate? You should not push anything down into the substrate, or pull anything (like decor) out of the sub while a crab is underground, or you risk collapsing their tunnels and molting caves.

If your crab was underground for 2 months, and you are certain that is the shell he was in that the other crab has now dug up, I am sorry to say that the crab has likely passed away. Crabs don't leave their shell to molt.
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." -Will Rogers

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