Gizaroo2 wrote:
Thanks for the info! What type of topical meds (or anything really) would you recommend then?
It depends on the nature of the lesion. Using an anti bacterial would not be helpful if the problem is caused by something besides a bacterium. Since we do not have much info on ABs in hermit crabs (there is some info to be stolen from the shrimp industry though) I would not choose to treat unless I knew what I was applying was in fact likly to affect the root cause of the problem. IOW there is no point to taking the risk of application unless you expect e benefit in this case. That can be done in other areas where you know a substance is innocuous in a given species.
I have no exotic vets nearby...the closest one, my avian vet, is over an hour away, and I have no clue if they deal with crabs or not. Plus, their prices are outrageous, and I can't afford a bill from them anytime soon.
I don't know their fee structure, but I would argue that I have never seen a veterinary bill that wasn't an order of magnitude less than what you would pay for equivalent service at a human hospital. Off the point I know but I thought I would toss that out there. If the cash flow isn't there, then it really doesn't matter if you are getting a good deal or not!!
Also, Blu shares the same tank with Banjo. I really have no good way of iso'ing Banjo from Blu...easily anyways. Should I give a both a salt bath every couple of days to help prevent it from spreading to Blu? I've read it's quite contagious. I also don't want to stress either of them out too much.
I would seriously consider isolation, but not at the expense of good husbandry. IOW, the animals best chance, treated or not, is to be in optimized living conditions, if you cannot give him that in an isolation tank, I wouldn't mover him. You are potentially taking a chance with the other animal, but unless you know what the issue actually is, you cannot say it is contagious or not.
On that note, if the problem is environmental (say a buildup of nasty pathogens beyond what the animals can handle) the it may well look contagious, but simply be a situation of shared exposure.
Salt water baths? I wouldn't - there is no way to do that without potentially affecting their shell water and hemolymph concentrations and that in an of itself might be a huge problem. If you were to try salt I would do so with a spot treatment and not a whole bath.
Be aware though that some of the organisms may well be slat tolerant, and salt water may well do nothing. Salt water won't kill bacteria that are from the salt pool for instance. IN that case, fresh water would be better, but to be hones, most bacteria can take the occasional brief osmotic swing and still manage to survive. Crab tissues? Not as well. I think I would either gather more data or wait it out.
As a thought though, you might try applying a small (very small) amount of honey to the area - it works well in many wounds, though it is not a silver bullet (nothing ever is). Not too much though - you don't want him to spread it all over himself.
Can't believe it came on so quickly...the pictures I took right after her molt didn't show a sign of the shell rot...and last night is when I saw it, just a few days after her molt.
That does smack of either trauma or an infection, or more likely trauma with a secondary infection - but what organisms are involved in the infection - that is what you would need to know.
Keith