New to HCA; molting question

[CrabbyMom1165]

Hi! This is my first post. We are fairly new hermit crab owners. Our first crab, Hermie, came from a beach shop, 2 months ago, in a wire cage/gravel. We knew nothing about crab care then and have learned a lot! We found out that crabs need friends, and got a second crab, Sandy, a few days later from our local pet store. We put them both in a slightly larger plastic cage with sand/gravel mix, not very deep. A friend found out we had hermit crabs, and told us she wanted to re-home her 8 year old, Crabby, who is medium sized (I think). So now we had a family of 3. We obtained a 10 gallon glass tank, but still only filled it with an inch or so of calci-sand and some gravel. Meanwhile, after reading a lot about crab care, and watching Sandy digging and hiding under the water dish, we filled our tank with 3-4" of moist play sand - just in time! Sandy went down a few days later for a molt. Being new to this, I'm nervous about the molting process and whether our still-evolving crabitat is ok enough for now. Sandy has been down for a week now - hope he's doing ok! We want to increase the depth of our substrate, but I guess we need to wait til he surfaces.

We visited the beach again a few days ago and decided to "rescue" another crab to even out our crab family. Shelly is a cute, small little thing. Thankfully, she changed out of her painted shell the first night. We have her in our old plastic cage and want to move her into the main tank with the others. Is it ok to do that with Sandy down for a molt?

Thanks!

[soilentgringa]

Hi. I just walked in the door but wanted to ask you to read the care guides.

http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... hp?t=92457

Will check back later.

Welcome to HCA!!!

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[KayedeeLove<3]

Welcome! You may want to consider upgrading your tank to a 29 gal or bigger. Typically people only keep 2 in a 10 gal... The reason for this is they have room to get away from each other and have room to molt safely without being attacked! They do like to be in groups but only if there is enough room to do so!

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[KayedeeLove<3]

1. What kind of substrate is used in your tank and how deep is it?

2. Do you have gauges in the tank to measure temperature and humidity? If so, where are they located and what temperature and humidity do they usually read?

3. Is a heat source used in the tank? If so, what?

4. What types of water are available (fresh or salt) and how is the water treated (what brands of dechlorinator or salt mix and what ratio is used to mix it)?

5. What kinds of food do you feed and how often is it replaced?

6. How long have you had the crab and what species is it, if known?

7. Has your crab molted, and how long ago did it happen?

8. What type of housing are the crabs kept in, what size is it and what kind of lid is on the housing?

9. How many crabs are in the tank and about how large are they?

10. How many extra shells are usually kept in the tank, if any?

11. Have there been any fumes or chemicals near the crabitat recently?

12. How often do you clean the tank and how?

13. Are sponges used in the water dish? If so, how are they cleaned?

14. Has anything new been added to your crabitat recently?

15. Is there any other information you would like to share that might be helpful (anything that is regularly part of your crab care, playtime, bathing, etc.)?

16. Please describe the emergency situation in detail.

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[KayedeeLove<3]

Please answer these questions so we can help out in areas of concern?

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[CrabbyMom1165]

Don't have time to answer all these questions right now, but here's an update: Our small/medium crab, Sandy, was down for 23 days and came up successfully molted! We bought a bigger tank (40 gal) and the crabs are loving it. It's going to be cooler here soon (temps have been in the 90's during the day with usually high humidity, so haven't had to worry much), so will be getting a heat mat very soon.

Also, not really sure how to determine the size of the crabs - does golf ball size mean the whole crab, legs, shell and all? So we have 3 all around the same size (maybe small golf ball size, including the 3 week molter) and one is a bit larger (tennis ball size, maybe?)

I'm sure we're not perfect, but we have learned a lot in less than 3 months, and we've come a long way from that small wire cage with gravel!

Gotta go, will update more later.