Should've known better!
Should've known better!
As most of you know I've been on for awhile now and read up and give pretty good advice( I like to think anyway). Well my dumb blonde roots are showing now. I have/had 4 PPs originally in 2 separate 10 gal tanks with good conditions. Recently for some reason I don't remember I put them all together in 1 tank. 3 had went down at different times and I was starting to wonder about 1 of them. However I was waiting it out. The 1 that had been staying up all the sudden was replaced by one of the others and I noticed that its shell was on top empty. I couldn't find the crab nor remnants thereof. I needed to clean the tank anyway so I carefully start taking out a little sand at a time. Then I start noticing that the sand is wetter than it should be but not soupy so I was hopeful. Well I found 1 alive, then another shell packed with sand so I carefully rinsed it off/out and there was the one I was worried about cuz it was down for so long. Dead as a door nail. (Yes I'm positive it was, after it fell out there was a pretty bad smell.) Well now I have found 3 of my 4 but still didn't see the other. Finally I was down to the last few inches of sand left and very surprisingly there is the last one naked and without a shell. At first I thought maybe I hurt it cuz their bodies are so delicate, but I didn't thank goodness. It was still fairly soft and light colored, but not pink so apparently it had just molted its skin was beside it so I put it by itself with the skin and several shells including the one it was in (it loves that shell) and kept it dark for a couple days with food and water. Now it is doing just fine and roaming around everywhere. The only thing I could figure on the one that died is there was no pocket at all where it was at so I'm guessing the pocket collapsed and it suffocated. I'm still not sure why the other went down and molted without its shell? It has molted 2 or 3 times with me and never did that before. I was putting food and water every 2-3 days since I was only feeding the one and using a variety dried food. So I guess that's why it took a little longer to notice which in some respects I'm glad cuz it was able to harden up a bit before I so rudely dug it up.