HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Ok well for the last week or so my littlest PP, Cinamon, has been buried down in a corner of the tank (i think) molting. This would be her first molt with me so I do not know what to expect. But now when I woke up this morning I found that two of my other crabs had dug down right next to her!! I am so worried that they will try and eat her, but also worried that they too may be molting and that if I dig them up it will hurt them, or even disturb Cinamon since they are so close. I also am hesitant to dig them up because one of the ones who dug down is my large PP, Pelago, and the sand has only recently been deep enough for him to molt so if this is his first molt also i don't want to disturb him. I really don't know what to do, does anyone have any ideas?

I would suggest leaving them alone, I think if they were going to hurt her they would have just gone down her hole instead of digging their own. They probably all just feel that it is the safest place to molt. Give Cinamon another week and if she still hasn't appeared I would carefully dig her up and, if necessary, isolate her.

I don't want to offend anyone, but if you dug her up in a week it would disturb her in the middle of molting. I would give her another good month and a half or two months before you go digging.

I find mine molt in the first couple of days they are down then just rest the next couple of weeks, but mine are Aussies so maybe their habits are different to PPs

How deep is your substrate and how big is your tank? If you have deep enough substrate and your tank is not over crowded, then they should avoid each other while molting. Even a small crab can stay down for a couple months. My record on a small is 59 days and that wasn't even their first molt with me.

I have a 60 gallon tank with 5" substrate, but this is enough to completely cover my biggest crab by at least a few inches. I only have four crabs though, and three of them are medium-smalls. Its been a few weeks and still no sign of her.

If it makes you feel better my small went down on July 9 and still hasn't come back up. He was dug up on accident and I got to check him over good, he lost a leg somehow during the original molt and was doing a back to back molt to regrow the leg. Someone told me in another forum to not be surprised if a small is down for 12 weeks even. I also think George was still de-stressing, which could be what Cinnamon is doing.

How long have you had them? Have the other 2 come back up from where they dug down along side of her?

I've had Cinamon and Pelago since March of this year, and both were pretty active so I don't think they're destressing, and I've had the third for well over a year as well. Both have come up, but about a day later one of them went down again and has been down for maybe two weeks so I'm assuming its a molt. I have heard a lot about crabs being under a long time so I have my fingers crossed thats all it is and am monitering to make sure nobody else digs down on top of them, so for now I guess thats the best I can do. I just hear so many stories of crabs being attacked mid molt that I think its made me a little paranoid.