not sure whats up

[AJV]

Hermes was very active yesterday morning, climbing, eating, digging and at one point it even looked like he was trying to walk up the wall of his crabitat
then about 7am he went into his hideaway and buried himself down as far as he could .. he has not come out at all. i dont know if he is sick or molting or what is up
i dont want to touch him and i know he is alive at the moment, occasionally i can catch a glimpse of his leg moving the way he is positioned

[Craftycrabber]

Do you think he could be pre-molt?

[AJV]

i don't know
i have only had him a week. i inherited from my cousin and have never owned one before.
when i got him he was just in the crabitat with sand and coconut bedding. i just made a hut for him and put it in Thursday evening

[turkey the crab]

If you just got him, he might be destressing, is he your only crab? how big is your tank?

[AJV]

he has been the only crab all his life, my cousin never had another
i got a friend for him today. its a 20 gal tank

[DragonsFly]

You say he "buried himself down as far as he could." But it sounds like you can still see him. This probably means your substrate is not deep enough. Whether he wants to destress or needs to molt, he needs substrate at least 2 times as deep as he is tall; preferably 3 times, so he can really get completely under the substrate and feel safe and secure. This will be safest for him if he needs to molt. And, if that is what is going on, then you just need to be patient, because he may need to be down there for weeks or even months. If he is just destressing, he may stay down for a few days. Either way, it is best not to disturb him; just keep the food and water sources fresh and clean, keep the substrate properly sand-castle moist, and leave him alone to do whatever he needs to do.

[whatthemath]

It's hard to not worry at first. I had one tiny guy down for over two months. o.O
I'm still pretty new to this, but I've stopped worrying so much. As long as your conditions are perfect, there's not much you can do or worry about. They'll do their thing, and sometimes their thing is do dig down for day or weeks or months. But they tend to know what they're doing, so you just gotta let them do it!