HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Need your advice on whether to check in on my little guy who has been buried for about a month. But I need to give some background first.

I had about 2 inches of EE in my tank, and knew I needed to change the tank. I was switching over to a sand/ee mixture that I mixing up. When I started to change the tank, I noticed that one of my hermies had actually buried and molted. I have no idea HOW he buried in such little substrate. (I know, I was a bad hermie mom for letting it get so low.... I was lazy... what can I say???) I desperately needed to change the tank, and clearly they're wasn't enough EE available, but needed to protect my vulnerable hermie. So here's what I did. I would love feedback from other more experienced people.

I left my molting hermie where he was, and left his current EE around him, probably about a 3 inch diameter. To protect him from the new substrate, I covered him with a cocohut after I cut a bigger opening on the side for him to get through easily. I filled all the new substrate around him & the cocohut, and made sure that the hole on the top of the cocohut was not covered so he could continue to get air easily. But put some moss over top of it so it stays darker. It's been about 4 weeks since I did this and he is still under. I hope he is ok, and feels safe, but most importantly can find his way out. I'm anxious to make sure he's ok, but I know it's best to just leave him. Do you think I should check on him, do anything different, or did I just plain mess it up enough already???

Interestingly enough, the night I put the new substrate in, my other hermie buried that evening, so apparently he was waiting for me to be a better mom! He is already back up an cruising around. So that's another reason why I'm extra nervous about my first guy.

okay, i'm not sure if i read this right:

chicklet wrote:I left my molting hermie where he was, and left his current EE around him, probably about a 3 inch diameter. To protect him from the new substrate, I covered him with a cocohut after I cut a bigger opening on the side for him to get through easily. I filled all the new substrate around him & the cocohut, and made sure that the hole on the top of the cocohut was not covered so he could continue to get air easily. But put some moss over top of it so it stays darker. It's been about 4 weeks since I did this and he is still under.

First he was covered with a cocohut, then substrate was added covering the cocohut. How deep is the substrate now? You said you made a hole on top and on the side, are you sure he would be able to exit through there?

It sounds like you did the best you could! I really hope he makes it!
I'm not sure if it's possible to check on him without collapsing sand around him, but if it is possible i would check. Altough if there is no strong fishy odor coming from the tank he's probably okay. How big is he?
One thing you can do incase this happens again is put the freshly molted crab in an used container (like for butter, cottage cheese, cool whip, etc) and place the crab in an indent in the substrate. Add holes to the lid and keep the container in the main tank to ensure proper temp and humidity.

I have accidently found a molter before while taking stuff out of the tank to top clean, the e.e. was deep enough but they chose not to go deep! I also took a hut and covered them up and put e.e. on top, once I took one of their water bowls and flipped it on top of them because they were just starting to dig around looking for the perfect spot and I lifted up the food bowl and tada there they were { no water in the bowl } but it work in the end. Never dig up a molter though, just to check on him unles it has been several months and I mean way past sevral months of how long you should of have expected them to come, then maybe you should go look and see if they have passed on..I have one now that I'm giving one more month and I will be going on a search and rescue mode it will be 3 months and he is not that big, mine are only 2 monthers

It probably wouldn't hurt to peek in and see what's going on. Was his exo fully off when you found and covered him?