Post
by VickieG » Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:18 am
I just lost a crab who came up from a molt and acted very similarly to what is described here. The 1st time she ditched her shell in the water and climbed out naked. The next day I found her naked in the water not moving. I nudged her out with a net and she kept rolling backwards into the water. I finally got her out and into an iso tank. After looking at all the shells she picked one. I put her back in the tank after she stayed in her shell for 3 days.
A week later we repeated the entire incident except this time she was naked and upside down in the food dish. She couldn't seem to right herself so I put her back in iso. She changed into a couple of different shells and after a few more days I put her back.
The last time I put her in iso, she hadn't been moving much except to hide from me. She'd literally be in the same spot for days at a time but usually in a shell. One night she was naked for several hours before I put her back in iso. She eventually stopped even trying to find a shell. I offered her 10 shells at a time and kept swapping new ones into the mix.
She didn't take to me putting a shell behind her and trying to get her to back in. She would also just put her back end into a shell without going the whole way in when I'd open the lid the last 4-5 days. She passed about 5 wks after she 1st came up. I don't know what happened or what else I could have done. I offered her all the best high protein, high calcium foods. She had heat, humidity, safety and shells free of dirt, holes and sharp edges.
I know this isn't the outcome you're hoping for but know that sometimes it will happen. I keep wondering if I should have left her to her own devices in the main tank. Maybe I stressed her more by isolating her but I was so worried she wasn't safe out of her shell like that and it always happened at 11:30 pm. Every night! Even in iso she would ditch her shell after 11 and I had to sleep sometime.
I hope you have better results than I did or maybe someone can see what I missed.
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