A missing crab

beka · Post by **beka** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:49 am

I know this stuff has been talked about before but I'd love a recap of suggestions, if ya pleaseI realized today (after much thought) that I have no idea how long it has been since I have seen one of my small crabs Ms Clause....I feel terrible but I can't remember the last time I saw her. I've got 11 crabs now (1 was added in feb and 2 a couple weeks ago). I know all of them were up in the beginning to mid feb cuz we did a deep clean but now I am almost positive it's been months since I've seen her. Part if the problem is that my tank is so large and has no back/bottom viewing and the crabs tend to change shells a lot and I can't even remember what shell she was in last...all of my med and smaller crabs have been so up and down since march. One other one has been down two times separately for a month at least since march. The other problem is that I have at least two down possibly moltin right now so I can't go digging. Thanks for letting me vent. I knew there were a few that I hadn't seen in a long time but two came up a week apart starting last week. Sigh

dylan644 · Post by **dylan644** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:54 am

Wait till your last molter is up and do a head count. Maybe bring a camera with you so you can document who is who.

Post by **JediMasterThrash** » Wed Jun 19, 2013 3:51 pm

The little ones do grow pretty fast, tiny's can turn to smalls in under a year.I usually only get to re-take "inventory" once a year during a deep clean. The rest of the year I have no idea what's going on in the tank. Occasionally I see someone I haven't seen for months suddenly up wondering around the front.

Laurie LeAnn · Post by **Laurie LeAnn** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:56 am

ya it's hard to do a count if you have a lot of crabs and no way to keep track of them all. I only had 5 and I started to write when each one went down if they came back up { a false start of a molt } then I would scratch that and wait til they went down again and remark it again. then I would know about how long it took them, it usually took them a good month and 1/2 to 2. last time it got to being over 2 and this crab was only a med so I knew something was wrong.. all my other were up. I went searching and yep he was dead..

finalfantasyxii · Post by **finalfantasyxii** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:17 pm

quote:Originally posted by Jedi Master Thrash:The little ones do grow pretty fast, tiny's can turn to smalls in under a year.I usually only get to re-take "inventory" once a year during a deep clean. The rest of the year I have no idea what's going on in the tank. Occasionally I see someone I haven't seen for months suddenly up wondering around the front. JMT - Do you locate dead crabs by smell in the interim then? Or do you just wait to locate them in your yearly clean? Or maybe you don't lose crabs much?

Post by **JediMasterThrash** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:50 am

Rarely, maybe once a year I'll see one on the surface, or whiff the smell and find one under a surface hidey somewhere.Otherwise it's just during the deep clean. I usually do not actually find the crab, I just find an empty shell under the substrate, and my overall count is short. If they die during molt or otherwise while buried in moist substrate, within 1-3 months they will completely decompose and you'll likely never find the body. It also hides the smell from reaching the surface.I usually find a lot of empty/ditched shell, far more than actual dead crabs. I think they sometimes get their shell trapped underground and then abandon it and dig to the surface to find another one. I've witnessed it a few times. otherwise they may have been evicted by a shell fight, but the victor ended up not wanting the shell anyway.

beka · Post by **beka** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 10:35 am

Well what do you know...the little lady just came up last night! I guess now that I have written it all down and was waiting on her, I now realize that I have seen her at least once since the deep clean. I thought she was a different crab and two have both changed shells but weren't out and about at the same time for comparisons. Anywho now I have them all accounted for; yay!We aim to get a couple new ones each year so I can only imagine that it will continue to be tricky keeping up. The only fishy smell I ever have is old seafood dinner in the tank, lol I like the idea of a small dry erase board or keeping up with who's down and when and what shell they are in. Now just to actually do it!