What could be killing off my E's?

[RamTech]

UPDATE: And then there was one. I've lost all but one E to cannibalism, and Hannibal the Cannibal is all by his lonesome in a 37 gallon 'tat. I hate that he's all alone but he kind of brought it on himself.

[YYWW]

Does he look content now that he ate everyone else off?
Does he eat food?
Does he look different, from being a cannibal, like zombie style?
What are you going to do now?


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[RamTech]

He has a stoic look on his face and I presume he's a sociopath by definition.
He'll have to eat food now whether he wants to or not.
Other than being in a shell that's a bit larger than what you'd expect for an E, he looks relatively normal, but then that holds true for most serial killers.
He's going to have to spend the rest of his days in administrative segregation - no way he's going into any of my other tanks to dine on my PP's.

[YYWW]

I'm sorry for your many losses
It can be a relief for the victims, to have escaped the perils of when they were alive. Rest in peace, eaten crabs. It's all over now.


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[gotta-crab-em-all]

I was driven to the same thing. I rehomed my friendly Es to spare them (one of them had been attacked by the mean E at least twice that I know of, so I knew there was definitely tension with one of the other Es) and separated my remaining PPs so that my mean E was alone. He passed several months later. I don't know if the isolation got to him, or what :/ But I wasn't willing to let him kill the rest of my PPs even if I felt guilty making him live alone.

[KellyCrabbieLove]

This is exactly what happened to me. I had started with around 12 Es in a 55 gallon tank with a foot of substrate. They started disappearing at the rate of about 1 per month, and in a year only the biggest three were left. I'm still convinced that one or a couple of those survivors ate the others. Sach was kind enough to adopt the remaining three (who by all accounts are mostly behaving for her) and I don't regret rehoming them in the least. They are a beautiful and fun and funny species to keep, and I really do miss the big guy so much.

I very much feel that with Es either you have a good group or you don't, and there's no way to know ahead of time if it's going to work out fine or not. I know there are several members on here who have kept Es without problems, but I also know there are just as many who experienced the same kind of issues you and I have. It does seem to come down to the personalities of the crabs themselves.

I definitely agree with the good group vs bad group of Es. I have 3 and they are amazing. They interact with each other and the PPs like one big happy family. I have never had a problem with mine. Even when it comes to my PPs I have only ever had 1 incident which was a shell fight between a new guy in a painted shell and a veteran in my tank during an emergency flood situation. Maybe my Es are just happy with the colony. I have no idea.

[tykesanimalkingdom]

Same thing happened to my boyfriend and I. We've lost 5 E's in a little over 2 months. It's heart breaking. Our PP's are fine. As well as the conditions in our crabitat. It's very frustrating trying to save a pet from the pet store only to have it pass after a few weeks.