Transported Buried Crabs- What Now?

[jakepaulfan420]

Hello,
I just adopted some crabs. A few of them were buried when I picked them up, the owner said they had been underground about a month. I brought them home in the tank they were buried in.

I drove about 20 minutes with them, and drove as carefully as I could. I didn't really think about this initially, but is it possible that the sand collapsed on them during transportation? I'm thinking I should just leave them alone and wait, but thought I'd consult some people on the forum. Would you recommend leaving them, or digging them up? I couldn't find a whole lot of resources online about transporting buried crabs.

[DragonsFly]

If you drove and handled the tank carefully, and the substrate is good "sand castle" consistency, it could be fine.

[jakepaulfan420]

Thanks for the advice. The sand in the I got was actually not sand castle consistency, it was very dry and loose. Based on your reply and some more research I did online, I decided to dig them up.

One of them came up healthy, no problem, is moving around and seems completely fine. The other one... it turns out there is no other one! I went as far as to remove all the substrate from the tank, and there was only one crab in there, not the two I expected. So possibly the person I got the crabs from has an escaped crab in her house.

[jakepaulfan420]

Oh and a note for anyone who sees this in the future- even with dry, loose sand, my impression as I dug him out was that his burrow had not collapsed. So even though it worked out well, in retrospect I'd have prolly been fine just leaving him buried.

[DragonsFly]

That IS very good info to know. And yes, you might want to let the person that had them know that she might want to check any dark and/or humid places in her house for a wanderer.