Weird illness

[WholeHeartedCrab]

Round worm, flatworm, and tape worm are all common in my state often from muskrats who carry mites as well.
There are also parisites that effect crayfish here and it was collected not that far from a stream.
The peppering photo of a marine crab was one infected with flatworms somehow.

[DragonsFly]

Crayfish are not too distantly related. Maybe it's something that more widely affects crustaceans in general.

[WholeHeartedCrab]

Thats the best we could come up with so far. I will update if the dewormer or h.miles works.

[WholeHeartedCrab]

As an update we have discovered the cause it is a mite that came in off the moss. It is resistant to h.miles and visibly eats/feeds off the crabs. It leaves marks or spots where it feeds and grows bigger after feeding kind of like a tick.

[WholeHeartedCrab]

Salt baths and spraying is not working either!! If someone has ideas please lmk!

[curlysister]

What do the crabs look like now?
Please post a photo of both the crab and the mite once it has grown bigger.

[DragonsFly]

Have you seen this thread?
http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... k#p1112539

The crabber faced with these ultimately removed them mechanically, with a small piece of cellphane tape.

[WholeHeartedCrab]

No I have not!
I will go read the thread but I should note alot of the mites are in the shell.

The photos I have are of a dead one.
One or two photos of a live one with smaller mites.
Sadly the others died all covered in them on the butt and body except the last one.

[wodesorel]

Food mites will go after dead crabs and cover them quickly. If they are small, beige and glossy they are food/wood/grain mites just taking advantage of a meal. They don't eat living crabs but may be found on them just due to the size difference.

Mites that eat living animals stop once the host is dead. They need fresh fluids, not decaying ones.

[WholeHeartedCrab]

Its been looked at by a dr. suggested in another group its not a mite we are familiar with as it eats both live and dead crabs along with leaving spots, holes in the crab. They have killed every crab in the orginal tank but one. I have removed the ones visably with tape, and its in a paper towel ios as suggested in this group. Baths every time I clean the tank, they dont respond to h.miles either and any food mites ive ever had always are effected by those.

[DragonsFly]

Oh, I am SO sorry. How horrible! I hope you are able to keep it from re-infecting another tank.

Is it even actually a mite, according to the doctor? Or is it something else?

Terrible lesson to learn, but I guess everybody else can take a cautionary lesson from it to be careful what we put from the wild in our tanks. . .

[curlysister]

What kind of doctor? Veterinarian? Entomologist? What type/ species of mite did they identify it as?
Do you have a photo of the mites?

[WholeHeartedCrab]

They are mainly a scientist/bioligest that works with marine and land crabs. Other people have gone to them b4 for exotic problems and you can normally send them a crab for aoutopsey but there was no reson to as the cause was visable to the bare eye. Also the shipping is a little steap. It also depends on if u need a full DNA typing. There is another dr that can do those but I did not contact them. Fungal and bacterial diseases require that testing.
I did not get Am ID from anyone yet idk if its the photo quality but I will try and add it to my shared google photos.

Yes there whole tank had to be torn down and sanitized I am worried the last one will infect any other crab I house them with tbh.
As before I knew what they had I replaced the first one that died and than the new healthy crab got it too and died.(I originally assumed it was shell dropping)

[DragonsFly]

I understand your concern regarding any new crabs being infected. Is the one remaining crab still alive, or has he since succumbed as well?

[WholeHeartedCrab]

I cleaned and sanitized the mite ios last night the crab was still alive Ive had that one in particular for about 2yrs give or take now.