HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I don't know if this is the right place for this post so i'm sorry if it's not. One of my crabs who recently came up from a molt, who was dug up right after shedding her exo, but has been fine, happy and healthy 2 weeks since, was crawling around, and happily pushing over a small piece of cholla wood I had in my tank at 10 when I went to bed last night. This morning when I woke up at six, she was out of her shell and dead in around the same spot. Near her was a crab that had shown minor aggressive traits on a few occasions, but the body of the dead crab was perfectly intact, as if she crawled out on her own. The other crab was not right next to her, but was about 5 inches away. All her limbs were intact and attached, but her abdomen looked a little funny. I ISOed the main suspect but I don't know if it was the other crab or sickness or shell fight gone wrong or what. I'm very confused and it was so unexpected. In less than 8 hours she went from healthy and active to dead and out of shell. Please help. I'm really confused and I don't want to keep a possibly innocent crab ISOed.

Put this in emergency maybe?

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I'm sorry about the loss of your crab. Honestly-I've seen this before. Was this the crab's first molt with you? Because I have seen what I'd call a PPS death because it was all related to the crab's first molt since purchase that is like what you described. Molted, seems totally fine, a couple more days the crab is dead. Did the ISOed crab have the dead crab's shell? It just doesn't sound like a shell fight related death to me, although it's possible.

landlubber wrote:I'm sorry about the loss of your crab. Honestly-I've seen this before. Was this the crab's first molt with you? Because I have seen what I'd call a PPS death because it was all related to the crab's first molt since purchase that is like what you described. Molted, seems totally fine, a couple more days the crab is dead. Did the ISOed crab have the dead crab's shell? It just doesn't sound like a shell fight related death to me, although it's possible.

Thank you. It was the crabs first molt with me. The crab I ISOed did not take the dead crabs shell, he was simply off to the side, and since he was the only one out of all my crabs to show aggression, I ISOed him. There was no sign of struggle, and the dead crab was about an inch away from her shell and curled up. I don't think it was the other crab, but I didn't know what else it could be. If it were a shell fight, would the body be damaged or in an unnatural postion? The legs of the dead crab were all in front of her and even, so I think it must have been her doing crawling out of her shell. I didn't think it was a PPS death, but that's what makes the most sense now.
Also, a couple days before this the ISOed crab was perched on another crabs shell, with the opening right below his claws, and he was doing a weird rocking back and forth motion. I seperated them, but was that a shell fight or something else?

In a shell fight another crab grabs the one crab's shell, sometimes from the back and try and rock it. They often check out the shell bu turning it all around just like with an unoccupied shell even though there is already a crab in it. Sometimes they climb right around the front and start reaching in to pull the other crab out-that of course needs to be stopped immediately.

Ok, thank you for clearing that up. Thankfully I stopped the fight. However, about an hour ago a crab that I got about a week or so ago came out and was prowling around the crabitat. He had been really mellow and shy, and stayed hidden, but in the last two or so days has been fairly active. I just got a good look at him today, and he molted! I did some digging around in my photos of him and the other crabs to try and figure out who it might be, because he'd been active; He'd be somewhere different every time I saw him. When I first got him, he was missing the tips of his legs, and clearly hadn't molted in awhile. So there's no way he molted. Surprisingly, this "mystery" crab bore a very close resemblance to my deceased crab. Because I don't like to look at dead crabs, I didn't look closely at what the dead one looked like. My theory is that the new crab crawled out and passed of PPS after being sluggish and not moving much after I got him, and the thought to be dead crab simply took his shell, leaving her's right near the dead crab. It would explain the newly molted crab that looks like the thought to be dead one. She had a gigantic big claw that made her very recognizable from the other crabs, and I know it carried over after the molt. I feel like a horrible owner for not knowing whats going on or even identifying my crabs, but i'm just trying to know what happened so I can take better care of them.

These guys can get very confusing. I would have done the same thing, start going through pics and trying to figure it all out.