Strange crab behavior?

[Tiggee6645]

We’ve had our hermit crab for several months now. I think it’s a medium sized crab. It has disappeared twice already this year for about 3 weeks each time presumably to molt. It most recently disappeared at the end of September. After it was under for 2 weeks, I did a surface cleaning of its tank - took all the shells, logs, etc out for a good cleaning. In that process, I lifted a half buried terra cotta pot and found him in a hole he had dug under the pot. I replaced the pot and we waited several more weeks for it to reappear. At the end of November, I took the pot out of the tank because I was worried it was too heavy on his shell and covered the hole with a black plastic take out container. About a week ago, we noticed that it was sitting up, so I took the plastic container out and put its food dishes closer to where he was sitting. Since then, we’ve seen him move around a little bit in the small 3x5 inch depression that was where the pot was and only eat on 2 separate occasions. He otherwise looks bright eyed on the webcam (as bright eyed as you can look on infrared), so I’m not too worried about his health. Is this normal post molt behavior? The last 2 times he came up and was all over his tank immediately. The tank is plenty warm - usually between 75-78 degrees with humidity above 80%. He is hanging out on the side of the tank with the heating pad, although he’s mostly sitting below the level of the heating pad.

[JoeHermits]

It can be, and mood swings aren’t uncommon. I wouldn’t be too worried at this point.


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