How long?

[scuttlecrusty22]

Both of my crabs have been under for about a month now, my crab Crusty has been down since the 23rd of February and he stopped moving since the 25th.(I didn't hear anything anymore). Scuttle had only been down since the 4th of March. They are both small/medium crabs (still sadly wearing painted shells from the store). Neither of them are surface molting though (thank goodness).

I feel like a crazy person still feeding and watering them and spraying their tank. So how much longer should it be before they come up?

[curlysister]

Hard to say. Cher, my smaller crab, has always stayed under longer than Sonny, my larger crab. 3 months isn't unusual for mine.

[scuttlecrusty22]

Ok thank you!!!I'm fairly new at this and my crabs are molting for the first time with me

[Boley7]

Just out of curiosity what do they look like when they are molting?? One of our has been in the same spot for 2 weeks. We've never had hermit crabs that molted before

[curlysister]

They should be underneath the substrate to molt, you should not see them. If they are molting on the surface where you can see them, there is probably something wrong in their environment or diet.

[crabby33]

Yeah, the way I look at this is that keeping these guys is WAY different than keeping tarantulas. New world tarantulas can molt on the surface and you can watch the process. But hermit crabs will burrow underground to molt and you aren’t supposed to see the process unless the crab molts up next to the glass and leaves a window, like one of mine did in January. If they do molt on the surface, it is seen as an emergency and that you need to change something in their tank or diet.


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[Boley7]

Thank you. I'd like to show a pic of what we are seeing