My crab only lived 9 days. PPS advice?

[sarahlee1985]

I got my first two crabs nine days ago. One I bought dead as some of you know so I returned him the next day and bought another. Ramon was the first one I wanted. He was active in the tank at the pet store and I figured he might make it. The other crab I brought home is Paco and he is active as well, at least he seems to be. When I brought Paco home, one day after Ramon and the dead one came home, Ramon went up to Paco and kinda punched him with his big pincher and then went and hid behind a plant. I haven't bugged him since then because I figured he was destressing or possibly getting ready to molt. Today something just didn't feel right and I moved the plant he was behind to check on him and he was clearly dead. No doubt about it. Hanging out of his shell dead. I am devastated. Now I'm scared that Paco is going to die. It seems that Paco comes out of his hole in the moss pit at night and eats because sometimes there is a small trail of food out of the dish or it is moved around in the dish. Am I being paranoid? Is there anything I can do to help my crabs from dying from PPS? Everything in my tank seems to be right so I have been told, I don't know what else to do for them.

[wodesorel]

Have you seen our article on PPS? It covers what we know about it and ideas of how to help: http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... 67&t=92531

The sad thing is that there is no way to know how much a crab has been injured just by looking at it, and no way to know if a individual wild animal can make the adjustment to being a pet until it does. It's a waiting game.