Moving while molting?

[Gleasoce]

Hello! I just adopted a couple larger-sized crabs. They were living in a plastic container with their previous owners (who bought them at the beach) and I put them into a nice crabitat with substrate and new shells. One of my crabs immediately changed out of his painted shell, went back to the painted shell, and then buried under the substrate and hasn’t come out since- it’s been a week. I don’t think it’s eaten anything and I haven’t seen it come out at all, but just in case it’s molting I’m not going to dig it out. I’m kind of worried about it because of how it was being taken care of before, but hopefully it’s okay. Feel free to give me advice on this too.

If it is molting, what’s the best way to travel with it? I’m moving in a few days and I was going to put the crabs in a bin of substrate so they don’t get shaken around in the car (only two hours) but I dont want to disturb the molting crab.

I’m a new crab owner and have been doing research on here for a while before adopting my crabs, please be friendly and give advice! I’m trying to make sure my crabs are as happy and healthy as possible and I’ll do whatever it takes to get them there

[Chocobo]

About needing to move when a crab might be molting, I don't really know what to tell you. I would just drive carefully and make sure the tank can't move too much. I would just check if he doesn't come up in a week and a half, and if he is molting it's no big deal. You could isolate him and put him somewhere where he can't see people and he'd be fine. Crabs also don't eat when they're molting because they store food in pouches. They eat their exoskeleton afterward which they need for calcium efficiency. If your crab does end up dying, it's not your fault because that seller sounds like the exact stereotype of a beach guy who sells hermit crabs as trinkets and has no idea what he's really doing. I bought hermits from Pet Bazaar and they're alive two years later. I bought two small hermit crabs from a mite infested Pet Smart tank and they died within weeks. By the way, the woman got anxious and started telling us it was ok because they're ants. (which is actually ten times worse)

[curlysister]

Moving the tank with carbs under the surface has a large risk of collapsing tunnels, no matter how carefully you drive. A collapsed tunnel/ molting cave will kill a crab. It is risky to dig up a crab, and it should only be done under a very small number of circumstances. However, this may be one of them. Motorcrab (and partner Xenocrab) moved and had to dig up more than one crab, if I recall. The crab(s) were dug up BEFORE they moved, so that the tunnel/ cave did not collapse onto them. Look for their thread (I think Motor started the thread) about how they went about it. If you dig up a crab, be prepared to isolate it from the other crabs.