HCA: Hermit Crab Association

One of my crabs Burowed about a week ago now last time there was a visible whole this time there isn't. Haven't seen him the whole time dug a little around under his jinxing stuff looking to see if there was a body to no avail. I believe one of the now empty shells was his. So worried can't find him anywhere. How long canhe survive with no whole to the surface? Is he already gone. What'd I do wrong? If he is gone should I get butterfly a new friend seems sad and lonely not moving around as much.

Hermit crabs rarely ever stay near where they initially went down this is a defensive mechanism to make it harder for them to be accidentally discovered.Just because there is no tunnel opening doesn't mean the crab can't get back out and its only been a week or so, personally its a little to early to be worrying yet.

Depending on the size of your crab and how new it is will determine if they are molting. New crabs can go up and down several times before staying down to molt. Smaller crabs molt faster than larger ones. Mine are extra large and large I would say and it takes them a good 2 months now if not longer. I had one that went down and was gone for 3 and I knew where he went down and After 3 months I went looking for him and he was clear way on the other end and dead. I don't know what happened to him. The worst thing you can to is dig up a crab in molting. It can stress them out so much They can die or you can collapse there tunnel.

So basically I w my know if he's ok fine t another 2 months still nothing, no sign of a whole. Dug at very surfic a month ago to see if I could find his opening he's was up and down for days and now nothing.

Like I said before he really hasn't been down long enough to start worrying yet like Laurie said they can go up to two months and sometimes longer so just one month isn't really enough time, personally I would wait at least another two weeks and see if he doesn't surface on his own.

While the other crab went down about a week ago saw him two days ago and just today went to move a big Shell out of the food dish so I could change it, he was in there. But still no sign of the other crab. When this one burrowed he left on obvious mound were we went down. Nice to be comforted by the fact ones ok though. I just don't want him to be lonely if the other crab died should I get him a new buddy?How much longer should I wait before giving up and cleaning out the tank?

You can get him a species companion but only if you have an iso set up and ready to go because the new purchase is going to need a four week acclimation period alone before it can be introduced to the hermitcrab/s you have now.Some hermitcrabs molt faster than others but the general rule of thumb is two weeks for micros/tiny/smalls, four weeks for mediums, six weeks for larges and eight weeks for extra larges and jumbos.I've had my smalls about the size of a quarter go down and molt every other week for a period of four to six months they effectively quadrupled in size inside a year and then their molting became less frequent and each molt lasted progressively longer which is normal and what is supposed to happen.Its been over a month now from the first time you posted and that was a week after the crab had gone down, at this point I hate to say it but there is a strong possibility that it may have succumb to molting issues, pps or a combination of the two.PPS or post purchase stress is a generic blanket name that we attribute to plethora of conditions that afflict newly purchased hermitcrabs and the effects of PPS can last well into the first year a crab is with us, we used to say that if you could get your hermitcrab through its first molt with you then PPS wouldn't be an issue but we have recently come to find that this statement just isn't true and that PPS can and does effect hermitcrabs way past their first molt with us.

Ok how does an ISO work cause I have another smaller tank I could set up for a little while. And should I just clean out the tank at this point?

Iso's should ideally be set up to mimic the main enclosure ie dish placement, decor and substrate this will make it much easier to transfer the hermitcrab to the main enclosure because it wont be going from sudden change to sudden change.The isolation period should last for four weeks this will give the crab time to acclimate, de-stress and molt if need be and during this time you should be as hands off as possible only disturbing the enclosure to change out the food and water and mist if need be.You need to start the humidity level of close to where it was in the store enclosure then bump that up by a factor of two percent every other day and by the end of one week you should have either an ideal humidity level somewhere between 70 and 80 or at least close to 70.This is done to slowly acclimate the crab as taking it from poor store enclosure climate conditions and putting it right into perfect or ideal home tank climate conditions just stresses the crab out even worse doing more damage because it is forced to try to quickly adjust to and compensate for a huge upswing in temp and humidity so a slow acclimation over the period of a week to a week and a half is necessary.If the store tank does not have a temp/humidity gauge visible and the substrate looks dry then its safe to assume that the humidity level is likely somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% so you can start your iso tank off with a 50% humidity and then bump that up to 60% in two days and then go to the two percent increase method every other day and you should have the crab acclimated to a humidity of 70% in about ten days roughly which will still leave four days left on the iso time for the crab to continue to acclimate.During the iso time your going to want the enclosure dimly lit and for the environment around the tank to be as quiet as possible this is done to lower the stress on the crab as much as possible thus increasing its chances of survival with us.Do make sure to add in plenty of spare shells about four should do and you'll want one a little smaller than the one the crab is currently wearing, one the same size and at least one just a little bit bigger to give it a good size mix to choose from.You can go through the main tank and do a deep clean but there is no guarantee you'll find anything but the buried crabs old shell as the bacteria that is present in the substrate will make quick work of a deceased hermitcrab.I wouldn't put anything in the tank to clean it just scrape out the old substrate and replace it will all new and put the decor and other items back in the tank.Make sure to sift through the old substrate thoroughly before tossing it out just to make extra sure that your not tossing somebody out with it.

Big guy went down again so it'll be awhile before I can clean again but thanks for all your help

Your welcome.

Well the one that's up is probably the smaller of the two since his big claw seems to be smaller then the bigger one's even was by 1/2 inch but who knows. When I thought I saw the Big guy wailer was in a different shell may have seen wrong and he burrowed this morning so unless he changed shells underground... I don't know.there sizes weren't that different before they molted so Big guys probably still down there but who knows I'll give them another four weeks to see and make sure then go from there and clean out either way. Thanks for all your help.