Crab burying and digging

Where we discuss the behavior of our hermit crabs, as in fights, pecking orders, shell swaps, etc. Please post all naked-crab posts in the Emergency forum.
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makmakk
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Joined: Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:15 pm

Crab burying and digging

Post by makmakk » Thu May 16, 2019 8:19 pm

I have two strawberry hermit crab, General and Kani.

General started digging 2 weeks after he arrived and buried himself inside coconut soil 4 days after Kani arrived.
We thought he was molting, so we didn't disturb him , but we heard sound from time to time, so that we were sure he was alive.

Therefore, we put Kani into another tank. Yesterday, Kani also buried himself inside the soil, but he came out few hours later. Before that, he had a few symptoms of molting, including eating and drinking a lot, decrease in activity level, finding shells.
General also came out last out, but we found that he didnt molt, as he didnt change skin.
Now, General is being put in the same tank with Kani, and he kept digging sand again.

1. Is General de-stressing or he just like digging? (He is a very active hermit crab, he likes walking and climbing a lot)
2. Is Kani preparing for molting?

The temperature in my tank is around 21-29 degree Celsius and humidity is around 83-92%.

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curlysister
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Re: Crab burying and digging

Post by curlysister » Thu May 16, 2019 11:24 pm

Crabs do not need to be separated to molt. As long as there is enough space and substrate, they generally won't dig each other up.
Crabs dig a lot, for fun or to molt or to destress or just because they want to, LOL.
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." -Will Rogers

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