Lethargic Crab?

[MurkyCrabs]

Hi! I have two crabs, with my smallest molting right now. There have been some problems with that but they are taken care of at the moment. The main issue right now comes to my bigger crab- his behavior has completely changed since my smallest went under to molt.

At first he was still pretty normal- he was walking around, eating, digging up dirt into the salt pool (he loves making me change the water it seems) but after about a bit less than a week (we’re on week two of his buddy molting) his behavior has changed quite a bit. It started with him gathering on some shells next to the pool and chirping. At first I thought my little crab was molting in the giant shell he kept standing on but I checked and my crab wasn’t in there. The chirping continued for a few days but has since stopped. For the most part now he isn’t messing in the food bowl like he usually does, or even leaving his log except for one night where he went digging (I was concerned he was looking for my little one but thankfully he wasn’t in the area where my bigger crab was digging after checking). Does anyone know what would be causing this? The only recent change has really been getting a UTH for the side of the tank after learning I could cook my molter with a UTH on the bottom. I have poor substrate that I’m working on fixing ASAP but its never caused issues before. I feed him the ZooMed crab food occasionally while giving him fruits and veggies until my new food comes in so I can stop feeding him ZooMed. I did go two days without the commercial food and strictly fed fruits veggies and oats but he barely even touched the apples which are his favorite so I put zoo med and calcium powder back in his bowl, but they’re still untouched. Humidity and heating is all in order, I’m just not sure what caused this change!


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[crabbycasey]

Could he be wanting to molt now too maybe? I think they get pretty chill before a molt. I have this theory that a molter can cause a chain reaction of others molting. Just a theory and I’m no expert, but it makes sense to me...especially with the hormones involved. Somebody chime in, lol!

Or maybe he was standing on the shell looking and calling for his buddy and now he’s sad bc he misses the little one, haha.

Either way, hopefully he’s just fine and you’re just witnessing another side of his behavior!


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[MurkyCrabs]

That’s a really good theory! And tbh him chirping for his friend may honestly make a good deal of sense they’d always sleep in the same little log!

Either way hopefully you’re right!


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[crabbycasey]

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