HCA: Hermit Crab Association

So, my husband is officially a sucker. I kinda am too, so I guess it works. We went to Florida recently, and I was looking for some larger shells for my crabs. I had no intention of getting any more crabs - I love them, but already worry about having enough space to care for the ones I have. While I was looking at shells, my husband took the kids to keep them occupied and managed to locate the hermit crabs in the shell shop. He "fell in love" and just "had to take HIS crab home with us". I didn't have the heart to refuse... And all the rest of us had our "own" crabs, so I could kind of see his point. My blandishments about adoption and the pet industry paled in comparison with the fact that this particular crab "needed him NOW".

So now we have a medium/large purple pincher that has shell rot. Her name's Athena, and she's larger than the other three crabs. It's a brown spot about 1/8" in diameter on one of the uppermost joints of its right walking leg next to the pincer. It looks like the exo has worn away in that one spot. It could conceivably be where the shell rubbed her at one point. The crab is also missing the tip of one walking leg, but otherwise looks to be in good health. Her color is good, she's pretty active, eating, etc. She changed right out of the painted shell she came in into a mexican turbo with a ~7/8" opening. She really needs a bigger shell, since she can't pull her legs all the way into that one, but I gave her a few larger shells, and she hasn't taken them, so far.

What should I do about the shell rot? I've heard it's contagious, and the crabs can pretty much molt it off, but should I keep Athena in ISO until she completes her first molt, and the shell rot goes away? I don't have an ISO tank set up (plan to do that this weekend), and it will be a few days before the UTH comes in, but outside it's mid-80s to mid-90s this week, so I guess I could set the 10 gallon tank on our covered porch in the shade. Right now the crab is living in a small container within the larger crabitat, so she gets the humidity and heat needed (80F/80% RH), and she has food and water (both fresh and salt, both dechlorinated with Prime, saltwater mixed up from Instant Ocean), but she only has about an inch or less of sand, since the container's so small. Athena has eaten moss, oak leaf, honey, and shrimp.

After she molts in the 10 gallon ISO, should I toss the ISO substrate, or can I bake it and use it again later?

Can I put Athena into general population instead of the 10 gallon ISO before she molts and not worry about the shell rot? How big of a deal is it?

I have one small and one small/medium crab that are currently molting in the main crabitat, and Helena (slightly smaller than Athen) is up. I'm afraid Athena might go after the molters, or infect everyone with shell rot.

What do you guys think I should do?

If any of mine come in with shell rot I give them a bathe at the start and leave them they should moult quite quickly however, you may want to ISO her


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It could just be an injury, I wouldn't panic until after she molts.

Thanks everyone! I was looking for the brown spot tonight and couldn't find it. Looks like it turned red like the rest of her leg. She's been in good conditions now for three days, so maybe that made a difference. Maybe it was just an injury. Here's a pic of her leg. The spot is to the left of the joint in the center of the picture. Looks like her exo chipped off.



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One of the crabs I just adopted has something similar! He buried himself and I haven't seen him in a couple of days, but I remember seeing a spot like that on his leg.

I've never heard of shell rot before. I kinda just assumed that he needed to molt soon (especially since he looked pretty pale compared to his buddy). Man, now I'm a bit worried...I hope more experienced crabbers chime in soon!

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IMO, it just looks like an injury while she was hardening being that it is indented in, and there doesn't appear to be any for lack of better terms "rotting away" type of look. Lack of deterioration might be a better description. It kind of looks like it got cracked while it was in the process of hardening. That's what I would say anyway. She has ABSOLUTELY beautiful coloring to her! Congratulations on the new crab

GotButterflies wrote:IMO, it just looks like an injury while she was hardening being that it is indented in, and there doesn't appear to be any for lack of better terms "rotting away" type of look. Lack of deterioration might be a better description. It kind of looks like it got cracked while it was in the process of hardening. That's what I would say anyway. She has ABSOLUTELY beautiful coloring to her! Congratulations on the new crab

Thanks GB, she's even redder and darker now. She's gone from an orangeish cherry red color to cherry/purplish red brick color. The color change continues to surprise us.

My husband is thrilled to have his own crab! Now that one of them is "his", he's been taking turns with me on changing out the crab water in the tank, and actually asking me questions about molting and stuff, and I think soon we may take turns feeding them. It's pretty funny actually. He's gone from no interest to a crab lover in like six months.

I wish I'd gotten a picture of the spot on Athena's leg when it was brown with brownish/dried looking edges. The color change took me by complete surprise. It doesn't look like shell rot now at all. I've only seen pictures of shell rot on the internet so far (thank goodness), so I guess it was really an injury instead. I'll have to look closer next time I pick her up (trying not to do that very much at all so she can de-stress and do her first molt), but it seems like that small portion of her exo is actually missing from her leg. And her bristles are pretty much all worn away. I'll be very glad when she finishes her first molt, although she sure doesn't seem in a hurry to do it!

How great that your husband has taken an interest! That's awesome in the picture it looks like the piece of exo is there- hopefully she will molt soon to fix it!


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