Scootch pulled a surface molt on me right after I placed him in the moss pit after dumping the water dish into his cave...by accident, of course. In the time it took me to refill the water dish, he had molted and another of my crabs had attacked him pinching a crease into his far back right walking leg. I put him in ISO and the next day, I noticed he had a icky black spot on his other right walking leg which I posted a picture of here. (edited: I just noticed from pictures that I remembered which leg was infected/injured backwards...oops)
A couple days later, I noticed he could not walk very well at all (his two right walking legs were useless to him), and I was helping him get a drink from the water dish when he dropped his back LEFT walking leg into the dish. Not too long after that, I noticed the black spot had spread to his only good walking leg left..the left leg right behing the BP. He dropped that leg within the week. He still had both pinchers, thankfully.
So, he had no legs on the right side and two basically useless legs on the left. I often considered euthanasia, but just wanted to give the pretty guy a chance. Every other day, I would hold him and hand feed him and give him a couple minute soak in first the salt water dish, then the fresh. He would shovel the food into his mouth with his LP, so I kept letting him fight.
Finally, after 3 months in ISO, he went down under (I had lightweight moss in his ISO so he could hide) and molted. He had grown two gel legs, so I knew it was probably happening and I didn't dig him up to feed him for a week. He came up about three days ago and seemed fine.
He has been back in the main tank for 24 hours now. No sign of infection and he's eating and shell shopping and very energetic. I can't believe he pulled through. He has all of his legs, but is missing the final joint on the one leg where the infection began. It's still fully usable and he's climbing and everything just fine. It's amazing since before his healing molt he couldn't even walk...he just flopped around in a circle.
YAY SCOOTCH!!!!!
I just wanted to share. I'm so glad he made it.
=]
