New Crabs Dug In, But Not Right Away??

[Gimpdiggity]

Hi everyone.

My wife and I have three new hermit crabs. They are our first crabs, and we read and read and read as much as we could before we got them.

We have them in a 10 gallon tank with about 5.5" of substrate that consists of sand from HCP and some sand that came in our starter kit. It's also got some coconut fiber mixed into it. We have both day and night heat lamps on a timer that switches them, and we've been having temperatures of about 76 degrees and humidity of about 80-85 consistently.

We've been changing the water (fresh and salt) and food every day, even though neither seem like they are being used.

Here's what's got me a bit confused. I've read that it's pretty common for new crabs to dig into the sand to destress themselves for a while...but our crabs didn't dig in right away. They were pretty active for about two days...climbing on everything in the tank, running around, and just generally exploring. After those first two days, though, two of them have dug in to the point where I can't even see them, and the third one has dug in so that I can see his shell, but he hasn't moved. Every once in a while the one that is not fully covered I can see his eyes and his feelers moving, so I know he's alive...he's just not doing anything at all.

Is it normal for them to be pretty active for a day or two BEFORE digging into the substrate?

Thanks for the help.

Jeff and Cathy

[Crabber85]

It's actually completely normal for newly purchased hermitcrabs to be very active just before digging down they will display this increase in activity levels just before a molt as well as eating and drinking more than usual these are key indicators that the crab is prepping for a pending molt.

You said your substrate is only 5.5 inches deep that is just a tad shallow as six inches is the absolute minimum to allow for sufficient overhead coverage when they burrow down to molt.

What consistency is your substrate is it dry or dampened to sandcastle consistency?

[Gimpdiggity]

It's dampened. I can form it into shapes, so I believe it to be the right consistency.

I think the substrate is okay for now, as we went with the smallest crabs we could find. It LOOKS about as deep as the crabitats that I see online that are "correct" setups. Of corse, it's a bit deeper in a few spots because during their two days of activity they dug up some spots and dug down some spots.

I'm glad that it seems they are behaving normally. Thank you very much for your response!

Jeff

[Crabber85]

Five inches of depth is okay for very small specimens like nickle, dime and quarter sized but given the frequency which they molt at that size they will be effectively doubling in size within a year so when you notice that they can no longer burrow down completely then that would be the time to add a little extra substrate into the tank.

Your welcome its what I'm here for.

[Gimpdiggity]

Thank you.

They are probably about nickel sized right now, I'd guess. Their shells are definitely the ones that would be "small" at the stores.

We have it at that depth because we thought 50 pounds of sand would be too much, so we went with the 25 pounds. When we order more sand, I'll make sure to leave some of what's in there now in there to get another inch or so of depth.

I measured it tonight, and it's between 5.5 and 6 inches everywhere in the tank, so we're pretty close.

I hope they come up soon...but I know it could take several weeks.

Until they do, we'll just keep swapping the water and food.

[Angizme]

Hi everyone.

My wife and I have three new hermit crabs. They are our first crabs, and we read and read and read as much as we could before we got them.

We have them in a 10 gallon tank with about 5.5" of substrate that consists of sand from HCP and some sand that came in our starter kit. It's also got some coconut fiber mixed into it. We have both day and night heat lamps on a timer that switches them, and we've been having temperatures of about 76 degrees and humidity of about 80-85 consistently.

We've been changing the water (fresh and salt) and food every day, even though neither seem like they are being used.

Here's what's got me a bit confused. I've read that it's pretty common for new crabs to dig into the sand to destress themselves for a while...but our crabs didn't dig in right away. They were pretty active for about two days...climbing on everything in the tank, running around, and just generally exploring. After those first two days, though, two of them have dug in to the point where I can't even see them, and the third one has dug in so that I can see his shell, but he hasn't moved. Every once in a while the one that is not fully covered I can see his eyes and his feelers moving, so I know he's alive...he's just not doing anything at all.

Is it normal for them to be pretty active for a day or two BEFORE digging into the substrate?

Thanks for the help.

Jeff and Cathy

That is very common. They are probably going down to Molt and if you dont see them for weeks it can get VERY stressful for us humans, but dont go dig as they are extremely fragile at that point

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

[Gimpdiggity]

My crabs have been buried for two weeks now. The third one has moved around a little bit, but not much. I see him moving his eyes and antennae every now and then.

At what point in time should I become worried about the ones that are buried?



Thanks.
Jeff

[Crabber85]

Two weeks is just too soon to start worrying as they can be down for four weeks or more depending on a lot of different variables like the length of time since their last molt as the longer they postpone molting the more critical it becomes that they molt and this can cause their down time to be higher which is normal for newly purchased hermits.

I'd say that if your crabs are down longer than one and a half to two months then there might be some cause for worry but like I said above two weeks is just too soon.

[Gimpdiggity]

Okay.

I will keep watching...and waiting.

[Gimpdiggity]

Going on four weeks...still no sign of them. Getting a bit worried now.

[megmaholm]

4 weeks is really no time at all if the crab is destressing before he molts. New crabs for me average about 2 months down, and I don't really worry until I hit the 4 month mark, even for the small guys.

[marandashermies]

Like Meg said, you are completely fine. Even though 4 weeks feels like forever too us because we are waiting, its very typical for a molt cycle. I actually have not had a crab that molted less than 5 weeks. That being said, on a rare occasion there will be that crab that can molt in just a couple weeks. But on average for small-medium crabs its about 1-2 months. Hang in there! They know what they are doing under there

[Gimpdiggity]

Well, the third crab went under about a week ago.

However, last night and tonight ONE of them has been out and moving around. Last night it came out, ran around for a bit, climbed a bunch of stuff, then went back and buried itself again. Tonight it was out and by the water dish getting some water, and after a few minutes went back to it's hole again.

I'm not sure if this is the one that buried itself last, or one of the earlier ones, as two of them have basically the same shell.

Either way, it's nice to know that one of them is coming out and doing something.

[jclee]

Here's a silly thought, but do you have enough hides and humidity? If they're coming out from a molt only to dig back down, they might just be looking for somewhere to hide or keep their humidity up. I thought I'd mention it in case it was an easy fix in the tank.

[Gimpdiggity]

They have a cave that's big enough for all three of them, a big piece of wood that's angled into the other corner that can cover them, and the back is some reptile climbing "wall" so that's like a giant cave in that corner, too. Should I add another spot?

Humidity hovers right at 75-80%

When it's coming out, it's not making any effort to go to the other cave...it just goes back to the corner it came from and digs back in. Last night it WAS spending a lot of time examining two of the ten shells I've got in there...maybe it wants to switch shells but keeps getting spooked??

I will admit that both nights when I saw it I got a bit excited and walked right over to the crabitat. Tonight I think that spooked it, as it high tailed it back to its hole almost immediately.