Horrible, horrible scare tonight

[Strawberry Black Cat]

This isn't in the emergency forum since I solved the problem and it really isn't that big of an emergency anymore. Anyway, after seeing a movie and comming back home, I decided that I needed to change the food and water in my tanks since the salt water in the top one had been pooped in and ruined in the span of 24 hours, and thought I should change it in the bottom tank while I was at it. After I had gotten the dishes out of the top tank, I bent down to the bottom tank to see that a little hermit crab I had gotten at the beach about a month and a half ago had come up after being buried under the substrate for nearly as long as I had had him. When I bought him, he was missing part of one of his legs, (I assumed it had gotten ripped off because of the metal cage he was in or something,) so I picked him up by the back of his shell to see if he had grown it back.

Imagine my suprise when he flew out of his shell and started trying to run away. I didn't shake him or anything, he just ran out. While I was picking him up, he had grapsed on to a piece of cholla wood in the tank and flew out of his shell, trying to get away. I stared at the empty shell and the now naked hermit crab for a few seconds before I came to a list of conclusions:

1. He just came out of his shell.
2. This had never happened before with any other hermit crab I've ever picked up.
3. This isn't supposed to happen.
4. I need to get him back in his shell.

Then I went into panic mode for a minute or two, and after I finished panicking, I thought for a second and realized, "wait, wasn't there an old topic I read while broswing forums about something like this happening to someone else?" Remembering some advice that was given on the forum, I knew that I had to wash the substrate he got stuck to himself while crawling around naked. I had some salt water mixed, but figured that distilled water would be better. I filled a shallow sandwich dish with it and put both the hermit crab and his shell into it to wash them off. After rinsing them off, I found a red solo cup in the cupboard and put both of them in it. He went back in after a few seconds, but I was too scared to pick him up to put him back in the tank, so I ended up slowly sliding him out of the cup and back into the tank. I would have put him in an iso tank, but I don't have one, so that wasn't really an option.

I'll keep and eye on him for the next few days, but that was seriously scary. Stuff like that makes me wish I had a cat or something that's a little more common sense when something happens, but them I always remember how I store my books on the floor and stuff when I run out of room on shelves and that if they ever peed on them or tore them up I'd want to kill them.

I guess that on the positive side I found out that, yes, he grew back the missing part of his leg. Also, Harry Potter loved the freeze-dried bloodworms I've started feeding them so much that he was in the food dish before I even turned the lights out. Was that worth the moment of terror? Nope, but everything turned out fine in the end, so I guess worse things could have happened.

[jmelissa]

Happy that you got things back in order. I think I would have needed a moment longer to panic lol. You handled it well , hopefully he is ok.

[CrabbyMom33]

Sounds like you did very well! Good example of why it's helpful to read posts of things that happen to others.

[Skymall007]

I'm glad everything turned out well! I would be in such a huge panic. I'm afraid of shelless hermit crabs. They look half cute and half alien and I get confused. I'm glad everything turned out well and his molt went well =)