Novas digging now a problem

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:04 am

ok, i have 3 crabs down molting, maybe 4. eclipse, lightning, Nova and maybe comet again. well, Nova has dug a network of tunnels all over the tat. she has one big chamber at thw right corner which i can see sometimes, but has extended it the cover the entire back of the tat. im worryed that she has desterbed the other molters, who are also at the back. and this tunnle is so big, it cant be stable, it is wide and has a large amount of weight above it. what can i do? im sure eclipse has molted by now, she has been under almost 2 weeks as is only a teenie, what if she has been attacked

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 10:40 am

anyone?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:13 am

Nova's behavior sounds pre-molt to me. If you have an ISO tank, you might want to move her over and leave the others where they are. I had a crab who dug like that, and he did end up disturbing everyone. I lost a lot of my colony over it, too.

If you don't have an ISO, try using the soda-bottle iso trick on her. In the case of both of my diggy little premolters, the sudden confinement prompted them to actually start molting.

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:31 am

but she is new and has alreafy been dug up, so this may stress her out even more. andi dont know where everone else is so i might dig them up to

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:02 pm

Sorry Brad, but I'm just not understanding. If Nova's down moulting, what's the problem? Also, if she's dug a lot of tunnels, are there any that you can see where there are no moulters and maybe collapse a few?

I don't know if this is the best thing to do when I do my nightly spot cleaning. I cover up as many holes as I can by lightly filling them with sand. Of course I first do a headcount and also stick my finger down in them to make sure they're empty.

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:13 pm

she coverd her entance, and now her windows, i know where the tunnle is because i watched her moving sand at the botom. the tunnle is massive, and im not sure where she is now, so if i colapse it, she might get stuck

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:31 pm

so what do i do, i am worryd now, i have a possibly molted eclipse and a rampaging Nova, even though she has calmed down a lot now. should i leave them, now im worryd about eclipse, should i dig? this is very worryeng, and i have an answer ASAP, thanks

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:43 pm

Is this your first time with crabs? If so, I would try to locate this crab (the roaming one) and stick him in an ISO. Try to look underneath of your tank and see if you can spot him, that is what I sometimes do.

Usually, I don't worry so much when I have molters in my tank. One time, 2 of my biggest crabs went under at the same time and molted. I had a digger who just trashed the tank with tunnels and lots of digging. The other 2 crabs came up perfectly fine. Before when I had my first molt, I would stick them in the ISO because I wasn't comfortable with the idea of what you are experiencing.

Kilimanjaro · Post by **Kilimanjaro** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:56 pm

I wouldn't worry about disturbing your molters too much. If ISOing (recommended) is not an option, than simply leave them be for now. As long as you are offering steady food supplies and there is no need for cannabilism, I wouldn't worry, even though it is hard not too.

Most of the time it is hard for one crab to dig into another's molting ditch because it is actually quite hard to find. It is almost like finding a needle in a haystack except the hermits can smell the needle.

Good luck, Brad! I hope all your molters come up fine. What size is your crabitat?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:48 am

Well, first off, don't worry about Nova. If Nova is digging, she's not going to molt yet. She'll be quiet and in the same general area for a few days before that happens if she's a pre-molt digger. If her tunnel collapses, she'll fix it, they're good at that.

What you need to worry about are the others, and you'd want to worry about them only if you know she just plowed one under who's already shed their exo. If she buried one who was still soft, they may not be able to dig themselves out, or reach their now scattered exo. Basically what I went over in my "How to dig and why you'd want to" thread in Molting. If you don't know that they've shed exo because their windows haven't been destroyed, or you don't know where they are, best to leave them alone. They're probably ok, and if not, you have no idea where to look for them and will probably do more harm than good trying to fix things.

Pre-molt digging can be a problem, but it's rarely a problem for the digger. I lost half my colony of 10 crabs in a month and a half because I have two PPs like this. Mr. Crabs digs like crazy pre-molt, and ran over/buried 4 soft little molters. Bulldozer becomes diggy and also aggressive pre-molt, and attacked the former alpha crab when Lrrr was digging down to start molting, causing Lrrr to surface, and cower in a corner for a few weeks before passing. Lily, Angela, Pirate, Sebastian and Lrrr are no longer with me, and had I known what to do earlier, I would've ISO'd these two before they had a chance to cause the damage they did.

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:26 am

[AFX], ive had crans for years, and am not far from my one year star, lol, so im not new to crabs, but ive never had a digger like this one. i have no idea where eclipse is, so i gess i will have to wait

Nova has settled down now, and her tunnle is holding.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:53 pm

Good luck Brad. Be sure to let us know what happens.

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:07 pm

she has stopped and hardly moves, so i have good feelings, i just hope eclipse is ok

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:38 pm

ok, so Nova stops digging, and eclipse starts

. it turns out that the big tunnle at the back is both eclipse's and Nova's, they joined up. i saw a window and eclipse it still waiting to molt, so good thing i didnt dig her up.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:57 am

So they're joining ranks. Be careful. You soon may have a mutiny on your hands. Or worse yet, a writers strike. Then every time you mention one of your little ones in a post you'll have to pay it royalties.