HCA: Hermit Crab Association

my hermit crab Armor had a bunch of bubbles between his little pincher the big pincher and on his face, and was hanging half out of his shell. he's not being to active right now and i'm worried... he's about in the spot where my crab Switch kinda fell apart, i'm not sure if that one's dead or not be he's only got one leg and the litter pincher. Switch isnt moving and some cloudly yellow stuff driped out of his shell...

Hi there,I'm sorry, I really don't know how to help you with your hermies. I've only read of this happening a few times and if I'm not mistaking, none of those hermies made it. As for the cloudy yellow fluid, I've never heard of anything like that before. Making them as comfortable as you can for now and leaving them alone would probably be best. In between time, maybe someone who knows more about this or has themselves experienced it will post soon.It would be a good idea to see if you can figure out why these things are happening. We will try to help you with that, but more info is needed. It would be helpful to know about your set up and care practices. Things like what the temperature and humidity is in your tank. If you provide dechlorinated fresh and salt water, what substrate you use, what you are feeding them, how long you've had the hermies, what species they are, what the conditions were like where they came from, what are you housing them in, do you bathe/mist and how often, have there been any recent changes recently (new toys, new tank, etc.) and anything else you can think of. I'm sorry, it must seem like a lot, but the more info we have, the better the chances are that we can help you figure out what is going on.

i have them in a 50 gallon reptile aquarium, it's got a screen top which i mostly cover with platic wrap. the temp is about 80 in there and i'm starting to think my humidity thing broke cuz no matter what i do now it's always on 60... i mist them everyday, i've got sponges in there. a bowl of water and a bowl of saltwater. i use playsand for them and feed them FMR land hermit crab food. i've had Armor since the fourth of Apirl, he's always been pretty active. I've probably had Switch like half a month, he was pretty active when i first got him, switched shells 3 times and then became less active i've hardly ever seen him moving around. he might have died from a shell fight. i have changed stuff in their tank, i added a few big rocks from outside but i cleaned them good. i put in a little shelf thing that's shaped like a K that they like sitting on. i've also added some gravel around the water dishes so they'd stop getting sand in the water. i added a new crab a few days ago, he seems great though. all the other crabs are fine. i just picked Armor upand put him in something by him self incase of molting, and he nearly fell completly out of his shell, i think he's dead... i dont know what kind they are, i havent been able to tell the difference yet

Your set up sounds good. Nothing really stood out except the problem with the humidity gauge. I can't say with any certainty humidity was the culprit, especially because the others are okay. You can calibrate the gauge. Read the post, How much humidity is too much. It'll tell you where to look in the library for instructions. It almost sounds to me as though Switch was attacked, too. Since he was active, then slowed down, he may have been in pre-molt causing another to attach him. Wish I could have been of more help to you. It sounds like you're doing a great job caring for your hermies so it may be that your hermie was suffering from something when you got him and it took a little while for it catch up to him.

I had this happen last year to my jumbo, who had terrible PPS. From what was told to me at the time, and this made sense to me as she came from very dry conditions, the foaming/bubbling is a last ditch effort for the crab to moisten her gills. In other words, the poor hermie is likely dehydrated from low humidity. Bubbling and foaming can result from chemical exposure, too, but it sounds as if your crab was really stressed.