HCA: Hermit Crab Association

How long can crabs stay underground just tunneling? I'm pretty confident that one of my small Es is molting but my other 4 crabs, 2 of which have molted successfully, are tunneling and have been for weeks. Jasper (sm-med E) has been up once in 5 weeks and has been tunneling the rest of the time. I can see him from the bottom of the tank. I feel like a dufus when I change the food and water because I know it's not gonna get eaten lol. My kids have lost ALL interest and honestly I'm getting a little discouraged in my ignorant pet choice. I sure could use some encouragement

Hang in there it won't always be like this. But we may be able to help keep them above ground more.

1. What is your substrate?

2. Tank temperature and method of heating.

3. A picture of the crabitat so we can see the available hiding, climbing and general layout.

4. Are they in a loud high traffic area prone to kids jumping around or other vibrations like air pumps?

I adopted a tank of 3 crabs once and one of them lived completely under ground. I would see it out once every few days, but then it would return to it's underground burrow. This went on for 4 or 5 months until I moved them all into my 90 gallon. I actually had to sit up late and wait for the crab to come out so I could move it to the new tank.

Thanks Kuza

1. Substrate is 60 lbs of playsand with 1/2 a brick of EE all dampened with mild saltwater. 4.5 inches left side which slopes up to a little more than 6 inches on the right side. Sandcastle consistency.
2. Tank temp ranges slightly from 75-82 depending on our apt temp. I have a used UTH taped to the back of the tank until I can get a new one with good adhesive. Also have to use an overhead heat lamp, 60 watt. Red at night, switch to a day bulb during the day. I want to use a 100 watt but my lamp keeps blowing those out. Need a new lamp. Humidity stays pretty steady at 83%.
3. Here's a picture of the tank from today. My 5 year old DD insisted in being in the pic

One cocohut, one coffee mug as hides. I'd like to get a half log also. I just haven't been able to yet.
4. Unfortunately, yes. The tank is in a very high traffic area of the apartment. I really have nowhere else to put it until we move in a month. We also have trains go past nearby and that shakes the apartment.

CrabbyMom33 wrote: I actually had to sit up late and wait for the crab to come out so I could move it to the new tank.

That's funny you say that. My daughter has been sooooo patient with her crab, Ruby, who's been down molting for 5 weeks. It was awesome that Ruby left us a window so we could see the whole thing. But it's been 2.5 weeks now since Ruby finished and Ari's not so patient any more She asks me every night before she goes to bed if I'll wait up for Ruby to come out and if I see her to come and wake Ari up so she can say hi. So far, nothin'.

It all looks pretty good. There's a chance they are doing some back to back molting action depending on how new they are, how small they are and how long they have been without a chance to molt. I highly doubt you'll have 5 crabs down all the time very often.

Have you tried putting something like a suction cup climbing plant in the front of the tank to kind of hide it a bit? I'm sure you can still get a good view of the crabs but it might make them feel a bit more secure and hidden. When someone enters a room through a doorway with light behind it is very scary for the crabs, and it's why I enter the room I carefully slide in along the wall so they don't all shell up or run for cover. It's the big shadows or crossing lights that makes us show up all of a sudden as super giants to them.

The last resort would be to put the tank on some sort of rubber or tire material to absorb the train vibrations.

We got our first one in early June. Adopted her from CL. We got the other 4 a week later from 2 diff pet stores, both of which had TERRIBLE tanks. I'm sure my tank was heaven. The pet store ones ate and explored for a few days then disappeared and we haven't seen much of them since. The 2 crabs that have molted so far were from the pet store. I really had no idea what we were getting into when I decided to get hermit crabs. I didn't know how much of the time would be spent waiting haha!
I'll see if I can rig some more of that vine I have to cover some of the front. I just need to get some more suction cups. Thanks for the help

It's only been that long? Oh well they are molting and de-stressing, once they are all sorted out in their new homes the ones that survive their first molt start to get used to their new home and they will be out more often. Sometimes after a molt they can also become very shy again too but that also goes away a lot of the time.

Cool. I guess I figured the 2 that did molt would come up more often. Oh well! We'll wait some more! I'll just have to be content with the fact that they're happy with the sand ha!

I went over a month without seeing any action in my tank last summer. I now know the conditions, while better than the pet store, were not quite what they should have been. When I did get everything fixed up better (mainly deeper substrate) they disappeared for a few weeks again. It was very depressing and demoralizing, but eventually they got over it and I see them out and about every day now.