Angry Chirps - dig up or leave?

[Knibitz]

After working on insulating my tank over the past few days, I finally got my tank teetering around the 80degree mark.
Between last night and today, it seems to have sparked a mass dig (I hadnt seen molt sacs on anyone who would play with me, but who knows) I currently have 3 PPs down that are about gold ball size. One is off in a cqirner by himself but I have two that could easily be sharing a tunnel, one's against the left wall and the other is 6 or 8 inches right of him both are near the front of the tank. One showing through the front glass one showing theough the left side.

The one one with the left window was the first crab down yesterday afternoon or so. The one in front went down sometime this evening as he was sitting on a log when I got home from work.

Left-crab has been chirping on and off since front-crab dug down (at least) and im starting to get worried. Front seems to be digging towards the right it seems, so away from left-crab, but who knows.

My general rule would say leave them be. They will figure it out themselves, but the other part of me wants to dig up Front. He hasnt been down long and this is literally too close for comfort.

I do worry that I could collapse left-crab,s tunnel if its connexted to Front...

[Knibitz]

80F/95% 20gL w/ 8in ee/sand. 5pps 2micros +1 micro e (overcrowded working on upgrading in February). Recenntly introduced micro e and got temps up from 73ish to 80ish.

Could set up an iso rubbermaid but I dont have means to keep it warm, so id rather not risk it unless absolutely necessary.

[Knibitz]

(Sorry for phone typos ^^;)

[wodesorel]

Go with your gut - it's led me to save crabs in distress more than once and I've learned not to second guess that feeling. Simple worrying when it comes to hermit is one thing and while that can be hard to get past it is completely normal and there's usually never anything really wrong going on in the tank when you get that sensation, but if that little voice in the back of your head is seriously saying "Something's Wrong", it's a good idea to listen to it.

However, chirping with a mass molt is really really normal with PPs. They're communicating to each other where they are and what they're doing. I once had 6 or 8 big crabs (it's been years!) molting at once in an emergency 10 gallon ISO, and they talked to each other for the entire month they were down together. Once night came, it sounded like someone had buried a bunch of crickets! And it went on all night until the sun came up. Even though they went down over a period of about a month, they managed to all come up within the same week. I swear they talked to each other and planned it out. Not a single one had been bothered by another, as far as I could tell.

[YYWW]

I have read that a chirper turned up dead the next day. Not saying that's what will happen, but it has been reported.
Most other times it was nothing. I'd say only 5%-10% chance it is dig-worthy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Knibitz]

Im used to chirping but this just seems like a very grunty chirp of frustration. X.X wheres the crab whisperer when you need one?

Im.going to be up for another hour or so so I plan to just read a book and continue to listen for problems. if left crab is quiet, I think ill leave them be.
If he continues, or front-crab digs left, ill carefully try and unearth him.

My gut is telling me leave them be, honestly. I try to tend to let nature take its course with my crabs whenever I can. :/ definitely hard at times. My recent move and stuggles with the tank in the new apartment are making me hyper alert and sensitive.

[gotta-crab-em-all]

The only time I've heard underground chirping resulted in a soft naked crab showing up above ground and eventually dying no matter how hard I tried to keep him alive/in a shell/fed/watered in iso. My gut feeling was "That was really loud chirping... it had to have been the big guy" and sure enough :/ I don't know why he came up, whether his tunnel collapsed or what (there was only one other crab underground at that time and I'm not ruling out that she died awhile ago so I'm not sure) but this is obviously a worst case scenario and I don't want to scare you, this is just the only experience I personally have had with underground chirping. If Wode has had it happen that often and it was fine, there's probably a good chance that there's nothing wrong at all and your crab was just telling the others not to throw a party without him~ Just try to be mentally prepared for what could happen in a worst case and make sure you have an iso ready all the time anyway just as a precaution in case any number of things happen.

[Knibitz]

http://instagram.com/p/wdSLB5sz6N/

Peeked in the tank before bed and saw "front-crab" like this. Got him out the rest of the way and gave everyone some fresh fruit treats to keep them busy while I sleep
Lets hope he doesnt dig the same spot. The cave left was massive. I lightly plugged the hole with moss and sand.

I won't dig the other up till he comes up. I dug up way too many molting crabs as a teen. Like I found the left over shell of a decomposed crab before - I wouldnt be surpised if that happens again. Hes a pretty big boy, my biggest at least, I'll probably give him at least 4 months before I bug him since hes been down for more than a day.

Maybe it will be like 7 years ago. Forget about him, thinking all my crabs were surfaced and rehomed, and go to college. Only to get a call from my mom 6 months later freaking out about a crab that magically appeared in the near empty tank! (Even most of the sand was taken out! I have NO IDEA how he got past me, let alone survived!)