HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Magpie has been showing strange behavior lately. Very reclusive, not eating as much or at all. Staying in the darkest corner. Her exoskeleton has begun to change color on her legs and thorax. Her eyes are stuck together in the "in-shell" position and her antennae are pointed down. She is very lethargic, but still pulls herself into her shell. I have been offering food to her but she rarely eats. I am worried, but I am leaving her be in case she is molting. She also has a kind of "old leather shoe smell" that seems to be getting stronger and doesn't go away with bathing. My other crab Tappy has been in ISO for mites for the past week and since he has been showing no signs of them, I was going to reintroduce him tomorrow to the main tank. In previous molts she simply became reclusive but I didn't notice any other issues such as these.

Temp: 74
Hum: 76
No chemicals in area
Crabitat has fresh material
No mites

Does anyone have any ideas? Any help would be great, everyday I'm afraid I am going to come home to a dead crab.

DANGIT SURFACE MOLT!!!!MAGGIE MOLTED!!!!!!!!!!!! and scared the crud right out of me I thought I had a dead crab in the tank!!! She gave no other warning signs this time. Now she is still alone with her exoskeleton hopefully she will eat it and regain strength soon. I'd take a photo of her but she is so soft and pink I'd rather leave her be. She never dug down either.

I AM JUST SO HAPPY SHE ISN'T DEAD! WOOOOHOOO!!!!

That's great!!

UPDATE: Maggie is still pink and soft like a piglet, but she has pulled herself almost all the way in and hasn't come out to eat the exoskeleton yet. I'm glad she is okay, hopefully she will harden up soon and be able to show off some new colors

QUESTION for the long-time crabbers: if a crab surface molts, is that generally an indication that something is wrong with conditions? Like, the substrate doesn't allow for tunneling or won't hold a cave?

Well even though Mag didn't dig down, she was in the hut or hide the whole time and still is. I just changed everything after a mite scare and it is deep and there are plenty of places to hide. She hid in the spot she felt safest I suppose.

I was not trying to say that is necessarily what happened here; I expect there are probably times when these things happen for no apparent reason we can see; I'm just wondering for future reference in surface molt situations.

I know, I was just trying to give mine as an example. Personally I don't know, but I guess if there is a space issue that could cause it. Or maybe it's just the crab, you never can predict with these little guys. For the longest time I thought she was dying.

I'm very happy your little one is okay and was surface molting!

As per the whole surface molting being an indicator of an issue thing, it doesn't seem like a crab would want to molt when not dug underground in his or her natural habitat because it would be much more vulnerable to predators, etc.

But in a captive environment I think things are different, so I don't really know either.