Are both of them molting or is it something else?

Metamorphize · Post by **Metamorphize** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:14 am

I purchased two hermit crabs yesterday from a pet store. I got everything set up, and they seemed happy enough. Our heat went down yesterday but I managed to keep the temperature over seventy degrees. I have sponges in there to make sure that the air is properly moisturized. There are two in a ten gallon tank. When I came down this morning I saw that one of them had been doing some digging. Today I gave them a bath, and as soon as I put them back in their cage, both of them started chirping, and dug into the dir. One you can still see his shell but the other is completely submerged. I can't tell any of the other signs of molting (eating, the sack thing) since I've had them for a little over twenty four hours (the little one did eat a whole blueberry to himself). Are they molting already or is there a chance that I've done something wrong? What should I do?

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:12 pm

Before we get started let me say hello and I'm sorry your having issues with your newly purchased hermits.Before we can help you we need you to copy and answer the questions found here so that we can getter a better idea of what may be causing the issue your seeing.I'm going to go on ahead and say a few things before you give an answer to the questions in the link above, your hermitcrabs are likely very stressed which is typical for newly purchased hermits.Hermitcrabs have a long and hard journey to get from their native homelands to our enclosures this envolves harsh treatment from the harvester, little to no care for weeks to months while they live in cramped conditions in the harvester warehouse to the time they spend in-store where they get little better care than before.You combine the neglect and malnutrition they have sustained with the overcrowded conditions which cause stress and they become very susceptible to diseases and infections they would have normally been immune to before being collected for sale on the pet market.During this time the hermitcrab has had to postpone molting for weeks even a couple of months by secreting a Molt Inhibting Hormone or MIH in its eye stalks because conditions just have not been conducive to molting and the longer the crab has to wait the higher the levels of the MIH continue to climb until it becomes toxic which either throws the crab into a surface molt or just outright kills it.The majority of hermitcrabs never make it past the holding phase at the harvesters warehouse and then half of the remaining crabs die in the store enclosures due to a mix of high build up of the MIH, stress and general sickness from not having proper nutrition or hydration for weeks on end, this is also called PPS or post purchase stress syndrome which can effect hermitcrabs way past their first molt with us.The behavior your crabs are presenting is completely normal and should be expected with any newly purchased hermits.You need to go hands off for at least the next four weeks to give the crabs a chance to de-stress, molt if need be and tank up on water and nutrients.This hands off period is called an iso period and is necessary for your hermitcrabs to improve their odds of survival.I'll go into more detail when you've replied back with the answers from the linked questionare.Until then on behalf of the staff welcome to the family and the forum here at LHC.com

Metamorphize · Post by **Metamorphize** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 3:17 pm

Oh no, I didn't realize pet stores were just as bad for hermit crabs as they were for say rats and guinea pigs. Now I feel bad for my little guys, I hope they're going to be okay. I just wish there was more I could do for them. This makes me want to go back and buy the rest of the little guys, but then they'd just get replaced with more.1) How long have you had your crabs and how long have you been caring for this particular crab in distress?I got them on March 2nd, they buried down in the evening of March 3rd. They haven't moved since then.2) What size is your tank and what kind of lid do you have? Ten gallon fish tank with an aquarium lid, complete with light. 3) What are you using for heat? Please be specific and include fixture type, watt or mat size and where the heat source is mounted.Heating matt on the bottom of the tank, as well as the aquarium light.4) What kind of substrate do you use in your tank and at what depth? Is it dry or damp and sand castle consistency?The people at the pet store suggested this stuff that comes in a brick and sort of expands to become dirt, it's usually used for reptiles. It's more damp than dry, though not overly so. There are about four inches of it on the bottom.5) Do you dechlorinate your fresh water and if so, with what product? Do you offer aquarium salt water in addition to fresh water? Again, what product?I dechlorinate their fresh water with All Living Things Freshwater Conditioner. I also offer salt water, conditioned with All Living Things Saltwater Conditioner.6) What do you normally feed your crabs?I offered my hermit crabs a combination of freeze dried shrimp (like the kind you feed to fish), All Living Things Pellet Food, and blueberries. They haven't eaten much but the blueberries. 7) Do you bathe, mist or handle your crabs at all?I was concerned for them yesterday because the temperature in my house was so low, (Our furnace wasn't working)so I misted them/the cage with warm water at least three times that night. I handled them a bit, mostly to give them the bath I mentioned before. I didn't want to handle them too much because the littlest one seemed stressed.

What are the temperature and humidity readings? Please be specific and include high low fluctuations if you're aware of them.The temperature is about seventy six degrees, it was about seventy last night. I'm not sure how to check the humidity, but I did stick my hand in there and it seemed pretty humid.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 4:30 pm

From the answers you've provided you seemed to have gotten them off to a pretty good start though I have a couple of concerns.You need to unplug the heat mat and move it to the back wall of the enclosure as bottom mounting is extremely unsafe due to how these pads work the depth of the substrate is actually acting as an insulator trapping most of the heat on the bottom, this can cause the temp to build up to well over 100 degrees which will cook burrowed hermits and cause the pane of glass to expand and if any cooler water should make its way to the bottom suddenly the glass will instantly respond by attempting to shrink while still in the middle of expanding which will result in the glass shattering/cracking spilling everything out including the crabs.Because it is necessary to back or side mount these pads your going to need to get a pad rated for an enclosure 3x's the size of the one your wanting you use it on so for a ten gallon tank you'd need a pad rated for thirty gallons to get the right temp boost as these pads are only designed to get the tank temp up seven to ten degrees from room temp.Bathing is not really recommended unless your having aggressions issues due to a recently molted hermit or your crabs have a mite infestation as bathing actually strips the crabs body oils that it works so hard to secrete and also messes up the istopic concentration of the shell water by replacing or diluting it with the water you used to bathe the crab, you put these two things together and it can lead to a very stressed and dried out hermit.The brand of water conditioner you have should be okay but you need to check the bottle and make sure it says it removes or neutralizes chlorine, chloramines and heavy metals if it doesn't then its pretty useless and needs to be replaced with something the API, Stress Coat or Jungle water conditioners.The salt water conditioner is a waste of money as it actually dosen't make the water salty enough to be worth while, instead use the regular water conditioner with an aquarium salt like API, Instant Ocean or Oceanic all you'd need to make full strength sea water would be about 8tblspns of salt to one gallon of water and your good to go.I don't remember if you said you were using sponges but I'll address it anyway, you can offer natural sea sponges dry as a source of cellulose(fiber) which the crabs need but putting them in the water is not advisable as hermitcrabs can't physically drink from them having no lips they have to draw their water in via capilary action using the tiny hairs that line the mouth.Sponges are notorious for growing bad bacteria when wet in as litte as twenty four hours after going in the water so if your using them for humidity boosting purposes you'd be better off using a spray bottle filled with dechlorinated fresh water or putting a bubble stone in the water as the sponges do little to nothing for boosting the humidity level and soak up all of the avialable drinking water leaving none for you crabs.You need to get a good hydrometer it will tell you what your humidity levels are at, these units can be found in the reptile section of the pet store.Hermitcrabs need a constant humidity between 75 and 85 percent as they have modified or fixed gills that need to be kept moist in order for proper breathing to take place, if the humidity levels drop to low say sixty or lower for too long this will dry out the crabs gills causing scaring and eventual suffocation.The substrate your using is probably Eco-Earth or Jungle bedding which is nothing more than ground up coconut husks but is a really good molting medium as it retains mositure longer and is lighter in weight than play sand so the crabs have an easier time digging through it and carving out molting pockets.You need to increase the depth to six inches as four is on the shallow end, you can wait to do this until the crabs have finished their iso period so as to avoid stressing them any further.After reading all of your responses to the questionare I feel cofident that your hermitcrabs are just going through a normal de-stressing period.I would suggest checking out the section of our forum labled Zoea we have two foods lists available at the top of the page, you can use these lists to give a more varied and nutritonal diet as what your offering now is only covering a small part of the range.Oraginc baby foods like fruits and veggies, acutal organic fruits and veggies, shrimp, krill, other types of crab, raw or organic honey, organic peanut butter and un-sulfered molases are all good to alternate weekly.Honey is a nautral anti-microbial/anti-bacterial agent so I would strongly urge you to offer this in combination with organic peanut butter or mashed bananas in the next couple of days as it will help with energy recovery and the crabs will utilize the honey to help heal any infections they might be suffering with.We all understand that your just starting out and believe me some of us cough me started out with worse setups and litterally no idea what we cough I was doing so we are not judging you and we are here to help you so if you have any more questions please feel free to ask as that is what we are here for.

Metamorphize · Post by **Metamorphize** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:06 pm

Thank you so much for all your suggestions! I only really gave them a bath because I read somewhere they should get one when you first get them from the pet store, and just assumed they'd like it. I'll move the heating pad as soon as I can, at the moment my littlest guy is burrowed on top of it and I don't want to disturb him in case he is molting. I could always just unplug it for now and pick up a new one, and use that for my ISO tank once they get settled in. I have been using a sponge, I have two and I've been switching them out every day and making sure the other gets thoroughly washed. Are there other ways that I can make sure the place is getting properly humidified? As for food I've actually been going through websites for things I can give them, even checked to make sure the pellets didn't have anything harmful.Also just to clarify things I need to pick up:-hydrometer-aquarium salt-bigger heat mat(?)Thanks for all of the help. I just want to make sure I'm doing the best I can for them. I don't want to accidentally do something to make them worse.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 8:43 pm

The practice of bathing hermitcrabs when brought home from the store sprang up back in the nineties I beleive as there were so many people bringing hermitcrabs home that were mite infested or had other issues going on from overcrowded conditions like coastal giftshops, pet stores and even mall kiosks so the info you have is not that old but it isn't that new either so no sweat you didn't anything to bad unlike some of us who bathed our crabs regularly and then wondered why they died six weeks later.Yes you can just unplug the heat pad for now and replace as soon as possible with a pad rated for an enclosure 3x's the size of the one you want to use it on.For a ten gallon tank you will need a pad rated for thirty gallons.For a twenty gallon tank a pad rated for sixty gallons.For a thirty gallon tank two pads one rated for a sixty gallon and one rated for ten to twenty gallons, you can unplug the smaller pad when and if you need to and you may find that you will only need it during the colder months as an augmentative heat source.For larger tanks a combination of heat pads rated for sixty gallons and overhead heat ie a clamp lamp with fifty to sixty watt heat bulb meant for reptile enclosures will do as just using the pads may not generate enough heat.You can find hydrometers sold on there on in most pet stores and you can generally find dual gauges where the unit has both a thermometer and hydrometer together either will work its your choice.With a ten gallon all you need to do to achieve a good humidity level is to have a good humidity retaining lid and sandcastle consistency or dampness substrate as its primarily the water in the substrate evaporating that keeps the humidity in the enclosure stable in conjunction with a good lid.You shouldn't have to have any augmentative humidity sources like diy bubblers or bubble pools though you can always add these in at any time if your humidity is constantly staying low.For a diy bubbler or bubble pool all you need is a bowl, aquarium airline tubing, a check valve, control valve, bubble stone and air pump.First start off by placing the air stone on one end of the tubing then cut the airline tubbing in half insert the control valave with the air flow indicator pointing towards the end with stone attached, make another cut close to the control valve and insert the check valve with the air flow indicator pointing towards the stone, next place the stone in the bowl, fill the bowl with dechlorinated water make sure the bowl isn't too deep because your hermitcrabs will be getting into it to bathe, add some smooth river stones to cover the air stone and help keep it submerged, lastly take the remaining end of the tubing and insert it into the air pump and plug the pump in and there you go you have a fully functioning bubble pool the bubbling action will speed up the rated of evaporation from the bowl which will put more moisture into the air you may find that you have to turn the control valve down just a bit as having the air going full blast to your air stone might end up making too much bubbling action which could result in the bottom layer of the substrate getting oversaturated which can happen when using any humidifying device as what goes up must come down and all of the water droplets that hit the substrate will eventually migrate to the bottom.Another point of interest is that hermitcrabs are escape artists and will try any avenue presented to them so if your lid has large holes or spaces on it that are large enough for the crabs to fit through they will find them via the airline tubing as they will climb the tubing to investigate where it ends up or comes out.Yes you'll need a good quality aquarium salt to make the salt water for your crabs as they should have both fresh and salt water present at all times.Hermitcrabs need salt water for several reasons but the most important one is for molting they drink the water in the days just before going down to molt because the salt in the water helps them to retain extra fulids in the new underlying exo which helps to create enough pressure on the joints of the older outer layer to spilt it and allow them to cast it off much like when you or I take a long sleeve shirt off.If you have anymore questions please don't hesitate to ask its what were here for.

Metamorphize · Post by **Metamorphize** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 4:07 am

Thank you so much for all your help! It turned out that the little one wasn't exactly on the heater, so I managed to move it onto the back wall. Hopefully that will make things a little better. I'll be sure to come back here if I have any more questions, and I'll get right to work on making the changes needed. Thanks again.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 7:19 am

@Metamorphize, we're here for ya when you need us.

Metamorphize · Post by **Metamorphize** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 11:36 am

Alright, I made some changes to the cage as you suggested. First I got a plexiglass lid to cover the tank, mostly because there were some large spaces and I was worried they'd get out. The humidity gauge was low when I put it in, but when I used the plexiglass lid, it raised to about 78%. My family has aquarium salt so I set that up for the saltwater tank, and took the sponge out of the freshwater tank. I noticed when I was shopping the little one came up and ate another blueberry, so I think it is just a case of them distressing I believe. Once they're back up and moving around, I'll add about two more inches of substrate. Probably tonight I'll replace the food they have with something fresh.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Wed Mar 05, 2014 7:23 am

@Metamorphize, it sounds like you have things under control and like I said earlier if you need us were always here. One thing I forgot to mention in my last post is that its recommended to change out the food every day and switch it with something else as hermitcrabs are biologically programmed to avoid foods that they have smelled or tasted in the last twenty four to forty eight hours, this is to ensure that they get as much of a varied diet in the wild as possible because only eating one type of food for weeks on end leads to nutritional deficiencies or gaps so nature has dealt with this by turning the hermitcrabs taste for previously eaten foods off to force it to find a different food every day or so.If the hermitcrab didn't have this built in mechanism it would simply just sit on the nearest food source and eat continuously from it for days on end which would lead to all sorts of health problems and the inability to molt.If you can try to provide rolled oats or some crushed dried maple leaves(collected from untreated treats on untreated land)every couple of days as these two foods are a rich source of nitrogen which is critical to molt success.You can sprinkle the leaves on any main food your offering as a topping which I find to be the easiest way of offering them.