Quick help!! Is he moulting? or gone?

[crypticlaman]

stupid question...Ive looked in the care section and im still not sure. when they bury themselves to moult do they bury with thier shells or without? I cant find annabelle.all three have been acting like they may moult soon but I had assumed there would be a little mound and they would leave their shell on the surface. I cant find her at all. there are lumps in the sand but im so scared of stressing her or suffocating her if she is moulting i havent touched them or any thing. They are all in the same tank. Im sure she didnt get out. there is no way out unless she climbed over a foot straight up the glass or jumped eight inches from the climbing wall.ive never even seen her make it more than a few inches up the wall anyway without falling. Shes been in the cocohut for a couple days. she unloaded a huge pile of poo...and now shes gone..Ahhh im freaking out like when my two year old went through the dog door... someone tell me what to do....please!!!

[crypticlaman]

with none of you online i continued searching random things in the search on this site (very nicely designed i must say) and I found a post from wai telling someone else if they heard their buried crab it was fine or something to that effect so i figured that was worth a try if the others werent milling around. Lee is asleep and not moving at all. Poe held still when i got close to the tank because i moved up a bit too fast...that is the weirdest thing ive ever heard!!! it sounds like...like...a tiny wooden door creaking open and shut open and shut slowly...is that annabelle? well it has to be annabelle...whats she doing? is she moulting...should i try to figure out which pile she is and isolate her? will they leave her alone? theyve been eating a lot of shrimp and exo lately...

[crypticlaman]

UPdate: I found her. not on purpose. The sound continued until a little leg emerged at the edge of the glass deep under the substrate. She kept digging down so i put a cardboard box outside the crabitat to block the light coming in from the hole shed made by the glass. Sometime later she started making the loudest repettitive clicking sound, she did it for hours. I got scared she was stuck and calling for help but i didnt dig her up. Im just waiting...

On a side note, has anyone here experienced one hermit crab being protective over another? I play with poe a lot as he is the most social. I thought annabelle was one of the lumps by the water dishes yesterday so i picked poe up and he "yelled" at me. It was the first time hed ever done that. Turned out he was just about right on top of annabelle. (directly on top of her is a seashell. I dont know if she plans to move into it or if shes just using it to make sure her airhole doesnt close)

[ladybug15057]

Breath in, breath out... repeat. Got a comfy pair of pacing slippers? Hermies can cause a crabber a bit of anxiety at times and just like a father waiting for their child to be born... pacing helps.
Ok, seriously now...
Majority of the time a hermie will keep their shell on for molting. This is to help protect them when they are in such a vulnerable state as well as a storage of water so they do not dehydrate. On rare occasions though a hermie has been known to throw a shell when in premolt for some off reason.
If she has made a 'rounded' area in the substrate she has indeed made a molting nest. Hermies are known to make this circle so when they molt they have room to do so in because once molted they are so soft. (like jello, no muscle tone until they begin to recover/harden)
Sometimes hermies do seem to favor another, but unfortunately there are times that it is due to the hermie starting to smell delicious to the other as well. On a few occasions here it was one of the only pms signs I noted. (excuse the term here) but occasionally the tank mates hovering over a premolter reminded me of buzzards waiting to zoom in.
Once a hermie does burrow though it is strongly advised not to dig them up. But be prepared just in case the others would begin to dig around their nest. Have a cut 2 liter soda bottle handy as well as 2 soda lids so ocean and fresh water can be put within the area. The 2 liter should be shoved all the way to the tanks floor, and any and all items the others can climb to drop in by removed from that area. If in a corner of the tank, a glass from a picture frame can be used.
And a side note too, hermies are expert climbers. They are able to climb the silicone on the inside glass corners. This is another reason we have screen lids under all our plexiglas lids, to keep the hermies in while it keeps flies and other pests out.

[emmac350]

The 'creaking' noise you heard may have been her scratching against the glass with her leg tips. I've heard my crabs make that noise sometimes too, although I usually think it sounds more like baby birds chirping or my old cockatiel chirping lightly at me when he was in love (he loved for me to pet/groom him all over his head/neck/chest and would make this lovely light chirping noise that reminds me exactly of how the crabs sound when scraping the glass.

[crypticlaman]

Im not sure what it was...it was definitely a click not a chirp though. there was no intonation whatsoever to it. It was so fast. I realized what the sound reminded me of. Have you ever heard a bicycle with cards attatched for the spokes to cross through? Thats exactly what it sounded like the highspeed click of the card repeatedly being flipped through the spokes...Idk what it was...

[ladybug15057]

The substrate against the glass has been known to make a noise. Here is a link to lola's hermie chirping:

http://www.youtube.com/user/crabstreet# ... WgDGHUvPQ0

Rarely is this recorded but lola was fortunate and nice enough to put it on her site and You tube to share it with all to hear.

[crypticlaman]

Okay im sure that im doing something right now. They are all comfortable enough to molt. Poor little guys must have put it off in the petstore. Problem being Lee appears to be surface moulting. Hes on his side and kind of hanging out of his shell and his legs are ashy and light. The reason im worried about this is he has wedged himself in next to the climbing wall which is about half an inch from the glass at the bottom. The wall is on the side of my heat lamp. I usually turn it off at night cuz we keep it pretty warm in the house. temp is around 73 every morning and 75 by the time i turn it back off. Thats how i have been regulating temp. I know he needs darkness so I dont know what to do. I cant put anything over him because the wall is angled above him. I think poe is about to go down too. I dont want to change their tank now at this vulnerable time but I dont want Lee hangin out exposed to the light if thats bad for him either. Even just the room light is impossible to block from him without covering the entire tank. Should I do that? and get an under tank heater for the side they arent on? or is that too much change for them right now? Im so glad you all are so experienced and on my side or I wouldnt have gotten this far with their needs that they even wanted to moult. Thank you all again so much!!

[crypticlaman]

Ive moved the heatlamp to the other side of the tank temporarily til you guys get back to me. I hope that was ok and he wasnt under it on purpose...

[CrabbyJo]

crypticalman,
73 is the bare minimum temp for hermies. 75 would be a comfortable temp for them, and it's fine if it gets up to 80. They just do need a variance in temp at each end so they can move to cool off or warm off, whatever their body is needing at the time.
It's also nice to have something they can climb up on to get closer to the heat lamp if they so desire (I've had some bask for several days under the heat lamp when the tank was 78* near the substrate).

You are doing fine, is there a way you can possibly drape a cloth over the end that your possible surface molter is on? If there's not, just do your best to block off movement so he is not being disturbed. The darkness is needed for the molting hormone, but if he's molting in full light, then so be it. As long as he is sectioned off from teh other crabs and has fresh and ocean salt water and food available, then I wouldn't worry too much.

I'm sure Marie and Emma may have some more advice for you.

Exciting that they are all molting! They do tend to do that