Determine The Age Of Your Crab

[emmac350]

I think what erikleeson is trying to do is come up with a formula for taking the number of rings and finding years. As in, if your crab molts 6 times a year as a micro, and it molts 4 times a year as a small, etc. then you could figure out how old your crab is in years.

In order to know how to do that, though, you'd need to know how many molts it takes before you go from one size to another so you could figure it out.

[erikleeson]

Precisely.

[ladybug15057]

But all hermies are different and molt at different rates regardless of their size. Example here being again, most have Jumbos that they say molt once a year, unsure why but my daughters Shelly one year molted every 3 months, but now the last couple years is molting twice a year like my other Jumbo's. This is not even considering... how many times did they molt in the wild prior to coming to our homes? Do they molt more frequently due to having all their needs met in the wild, as well as plenty of exercise? (more than we could possibly provide during their captive lives even with daily exercise outside of the tank)

[bobo]

can you take one of their anntanaese if they surface moult and do it tht way?

[ladybug15057]

One should not disturb a molter, and being one cannot determine the age of a hermie by the rings on their antenna but only how many times they may of molted in their lifetime it would not be worth stressing the hermie for this. And if they ever had lost their antenna, or had them nipped off at any point, no guarantee that even the rings would signify the correct number of molts during their lifetime.

[deathbatbabe6661]

wow i wouldnt be aby to do this. hermy body parts make me squeemish