HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I have an odd question and I am not sure how to state it, so please bear with me. I have one small PP, Sally, she was brought home with another small PP Lightning. These 2 have totally different personalities, Lightning is always going and out and about. Sally is the one I have a question about. When we first got her back around August she stayed out and played and switched shells multiple times before finally finding the one she is currently in, then she went down underground and I figured it was for a molt. She was down for over 2 months and we really thought she had passed on, so we went and found her, and too our surprise she was still alive. Well she got something to drink and eat then went back underground, up until I got my new bigger tank around Christmas, and we had to find her to move. So after another month or so underneath she was found alive and bathed with the others, again she got something to eat and moved underground again. Since then she has been seen out and about only once about every three weeks, and normally it is just to get a quick drink and some food then away she goes. I know it is not normal for this behavior but does anyone else have one that lives strictly underground? I know she is not coming out b/c she always go to the same spot and I have smoothed out the sand around her and it is not disturbed and when it is I see her. She is the only I have like this as the rest of mine are climbers and only bury to molt, or dig a trench and lay there until lights out then they come out. Is this unheard of? I do not worry about her anymore and when I see her I get truly excited, we even ask each other about once a month if there has been a "Sally Sighting?" Anyway just curious, sorry for the length.

I honestly have no idea what Sally's up to

I'd like to know if any of my crabs that have been buried since I bought them 3 weeks ago will be like this.

hmmmm, thats pretty strange... when you last saw her did it look like she molted? (signs would be fuzzy legs, sharp toenails, ect) how small is she? quarter or nickel sized? maybe she i sunder for a really long molt, but that seem starnge. good luck!

If anything I would say she is closer to the nickel size more so than the quarter. The first time we found her she did look freshly molted, but recovered from that, as she was nicely colored and fuzzy with the toenails. Since then she still has beautiful coloring she just seems to prefer the dark and underground security.

2 of my crabs do this all the time. Try staying up until like 4 in the AM then you will see the cave dwellers

My Es go under all the time. Just to scare me. My PPs seem to go under ONLY when they molt.

I have an E that seems to live permanently underground.

But if you get up in the middle of the night ... you occasionally see him in the food and water bowls.

I put him in ISO a few weeks ago ... I thought he was molting.

He literally ate 3 bowls of food clean (the size of a dixie bathroom cup), drank water and went under.

He is only a small/medium. I swear he either hid the food or stuffed it in his shell.

Then disappeared for 3 weeks. We saw him for a brief moment yesterday.

I will say this ... if I put smelly fish ... or chicken bones in the tank he usually comes up at night.

I do this every once in a while just to check on him.

one of my favorites act similar to yours. Shelley was one of my first crabbies and she disappears all the time for months, comes up every night for a week, eats, drinks and is active as can be then disappears again. I stopped worrying about her once i realized her pattern. Now it's just REALLY exciting to see shelley surface and destroy the tat, then disappear again. I wouldn't worry-just a personality trait.

Ya, I've got a crab (micro E) that I NEVER see. She just molted, she came up to eat, then she just hides all day or digs down. :roll:

I have one like that too. Elliot comes up maybe once a week. I have gone several weeks without seeing him. He must know when I start really worrying about him, because whenever I do he pops up to eat. I'm pretty sure he molted one time, but he still spends 90% of his time under.