I think my baby is dead...

rcmommy · Post by **rcmommy** » 11 May 2005, 01:47

okay, I have had "crud" for almost a year now...purchased in May 2004. He is a baseball sized crab. I fell hopelessly in love with him. All of the other crabs we bought at the same time and in the past have died by leaving their shell. We would go in and find them naked, belly up, and gone. Crud started showing signs of molting for the first time about two months ago. He's alone in the aquarium so I didn't have to worry about an ISO tank. He came up from digging one day and I noticed that he didn't go back down and that the sand was too dry.

I placed him out of the tank, spritzed the sand and stirred it. I have to keep a mound for him since he is so big so he has room to dig under. When I placed him back in the tank he almost fell out of the shell.....I thought oppppsss. this is show time!!! He had never molted before and since he is so big I was really nervous. I covered the aquarium sides to make it dark for him since he was too weak to go back under the sand.

I kept a check on him for movement and late last week I noticed the exo looked detached. So I left him alone. However I noticed the smell last night. I couldn't resist, worried, I picked him up and of course the exo came off and inside is a new molted....BUT MOLDED body. He was not moving. He had white fuzz and growth all over him. And he stunk! Not knowing what to do I put him back in. No change today. Stinks worse. So I spritzed him off a little to get the mold off...(I NOW know that was a no no for a new molt!!!) And the water that drained was black and nasty. He fell out of the shell and his abdomn is black and oosy. BUT he has a perfectly formed molted body!!!! I put him back in the shell, very gently, cried a little, and stuck him back in the crabitat. Please tell me he's not dead!!!! I keep reading about not putting water on them while molting cause of mold growth...I didn't do that and he got mold anyway. And I never see anything that states that the mold can kill them. What happened and how can I prevent it in the future. I've had others successfully molt but they did it under ground.

Thanks...I just don't want to accept it.

rcmommy · Post by **rcmommy** » 11 May 2005, 06:02

Well, the smell forced me to accept it. It was traveling through the house. Crud passed away sometime while finishing his molting cycle. It's horrible. He had a fully formed molted body. Just something went wrong. I'm new to the site and I'm getting a lot of great info! It's just sad to loose him. He was so gentle and sweet!

Post by **Wai** » 11 May 2005, 17:30

I understand how you feel. My jumbo Solar died in the middle of his molt too. He couldn't shed the whole skin off, but died inside

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