Well as soon as I put him back he started digging again and by the time I went to bed he had buried himself again. I realized he had done this intentionally. I decided to do an internet search on why hermit crabs bury themselves and I discovered that he was molting.
Hermit crabs have their skeletons on the outside of their bodies. It is called an exoskeleton. It protects their soft bodies. As a hermit crab grows their exoskeletons do not grow with them and they need to shed their exoskeleton. This process is called molting. Our crab was molting! I read that I should isolate him from the other crabs as it is very stressful for the molting crab and he becomes vulnerable to the other crabs. We decided not to move him since he had buried himself. He stayed under the sand for almost two weeks.
The other night he finally emerged. I looked at him and thought he looked dead. He was hanging out of his shell and looked very white/ashy. I knew from reading that when a crab molts you may think he is dead but may not be. That if there was no smell (and we knew what a dead hermit crab smelled like as we had two die last year and there is no mistaking they are dead!) he was most likely fine.
The next morning Kaden came running telling me that the white and black hermit crab was out of its shell! I thought well that is odd since the crab that was molting was in a yellow and black shell. We came out and there was a hermit crab out of his shell sitting in the water dish! The white and black shell was empty. I guess when our yellow and black crab that was molting came out of his shell the black and white crab decided to steal his shell! Just imagine someone stealing your home while you were out!
We watched the crab without a shell for a few minutes and I grabbed my camera. I also added a new shell thinking maybe our guy needed a bigger shell. No he headed right for the black and white shell that the other crab had vacated and made himself comfy.
Our newly molted crab~see the other crab on the right side of the picture that is how dark they are supposed to look. Our molted crab is all pink!
searching for his shell
ahhhh home at last!
This is the remains of the exoskeleton. The crab ate most of it a few days later. It gives the crab calcium and nutrients he needs.
5 comments:
Sounds kinda like my son's crayfish. They eat the exoskeleton too. Cute crabs!
Gross!
Best to iso a molting hermit crab. If the molting crab is buried, take the other(non-molting) crab out of the tank, (the one that is not molting).
I remove the healthy nonmolters, leaving the molter alone in tank.
So the molting crab is left in the tank, and the nonmolter is removed to another tank.
http://www.crabbytalk.com
Best of luck. Crab leaves shell when other bully crab takes weaker crab's shell. After molt. the molter is very weak.
Its like my crabs thanks for the help good luck with your crabs!! My crab will not bury its self though my other didn't either and he lived i'm not sure about this one though HELP!!
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and descriptive post. The photos were extremely helpful. We have crabs that we have adopted over the years and for the first time saw one out of his shell this morning. After a brief panic we found his exoskeleton and shell in his coconut. We removed the other, sleeping crab, to another tank for now. We sprayed the main tank, refreshed all the water and food, put his shell near him, put his coconut over him and covered the tank with a towel. As per most posts on the internet we didn't touch him. After about 20 minutes he has moved back into his old shell. He appears to be resting. We'll just make sure he has the optimal environment for now, and wait. Thanks again. And the comments, especially about following your instincts not to iso if you think it will stress your crab too much, were also very helpful.
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