Dead hermie smell disappeared?

[myllkti]

Heya! So I was helping someone on another platform whose hermit apparently died because they could smell the classic fish smell very strongly. They couldn’t find the body though so they guessed it was one of the underground crabbies (two under, one up). I came up with some possibilities as to what could’ve happened and what they might do next but what really has me stumped is that they also said that the smell went away overnight (I was responding to a message they had sent the night before). Perhaps the tunnel had been open and then collapsed? I don’t want to put forth more ideas when I’ve never heard of this happening before

[myllkti]

Update they decided to dig for the dead body and it turns out all three crabs are still alive so they covered to molters up with cups. Is there any way the smell might’ve been like the molt smell wafting out? That wouldn’t make sense though because surface molters don’t get mistaken for dead from a smell…. I’m not sure. Any thoughts would be appreciated, if just for my curiosity at this point

[curlysister]

Probably just some food the crabs had dragged around.
If a crab dies underground, it usually won't smell.
If they had come here to seek help, I would have advised not to dig.

[myllkti]

Aaah okay, that makes sense. Ty for your help!

[myllkti]

Wait sorry why would the smell have disappeared then? Wouldn’t it still stink under there?

[JTKermie]

Once the sub becomes bio active, the micro organisms in it will consume and take the stink away from dead matter pretty quickly I'd think.

[myllkti]

Ah I see! Thanks!

[MurkyCrabs]

Hi! it was actually me you helped out! we never did figure out the source of the smell. I actually just came here to post and ask what people thought it could be. I was so terrified to dig up my crabs, it is not something I wanted to do at all. I was very very stressed that I could cause a bacterial bloom by leaving a body. i was convinced it was a dead crab because as soon as I took a picture (with flash, not my smartest moment) it smelled like rotten fish within two minutes. my room was too vile to sleep in or even spend time in at all that night, and the smell lasted for 2+ hours, as for 1-2 hours we were going in every so often and looking to see If we could find any corpses above the sub. My logic was "oh my god the crab i took a picture of got scared and dug down into a tunnel that held the dead crab, now it smells and he's going to keep doing that and eat a rotten corpse and make himself sick" I still really regret digging my molters up, i just wasn't sure what to do in that situation besides do that. I was undergoing a lot of stressful medical testing during those days and wasn't sleeping so I'll admit my mind wasn't at its best and its probably how my poor decision-making came about. I've been keeping since Nov. 2020 and have never come across anything like this, + I'm away at school and this was the first time i'd been home in 3 months, i really thought my active crab had gone and murdered someone since i need to add another inch or two of sub. I was wondering, does anyone have any advice on what to do if this happens again? or any other clue as to what this could have been, just because I can absolutely 100% guarantee it was not food. i absolutely will not dig up my crabbies again, just a poor decision made from 3 days of stress of thinking there was a rotting corpse that was going to continue smelling if i didn't take care of it.

[curlysister]

If a crab dies underground, there is too much substrate on top, and the smell won't come to the surface. Bacterial blooms are generally caused by anaerobic bacteria, which occur when there isn't enough air flow (deep sub + moisture + sealed up tanks). A dead crab won't cause one.
If the smell comes and goes, I wouldn't stress too much.
My way of looking at a possibly dead crab underground, is that if it is dead there is nothing to be gained by digging - it will simply decompose under the surface. But if it isn't dead, you could possibly cause problems if you dig it up during a vulnerable time during it's molt.

How are they doing, the ones you dug up?

[MurkyCrabs]

Thankfully fine to my knowledge, back at school but we did the digging tuesday night. my mom watches their behaviors to let me know if anything weird is going on and everyone had just gone down within about the last week or so before i came home, and we saw no exo's so I think we just caused some stress. If one had been down for a few months i don't think i would have gone through with it. we're gonna slowly lift the cups just to make sure no one is trapped from them (I'm thinking I'm going to leave them until I'm positive no one is molting or in the process at all anymore). We just followed the tunnels to see if we could expose the smell and sorta scraped at the sub until we saw crab if that makes any sense. I was sleeping on the couch because i couldn't handle the smell and was just such a ball of stress from external circumstances that it was deemed the best move. I'm so against digging crabbies up i cant believe i even did it. Honestly now wondering if the smell was some sort of stress smell...