Two fatalities... Why?

jasper · Post by **jasper** » 21 Jan 2007, 17:11

Two of my hermies have died.

I bought a ten gallon tank for my hermies late last year. I use aquarium sand as substrate, provides one salt-water bowl, one fresh-water bowl and fresh food. I make sure the temperature / humidity are within the right range. There is an under tank heater, and a 40W desk lamp for added warmth.

The two that died burrowed in on Jan 4, and did not resurface. I thought they were molting. Instead of moving them, I moved the remaining two hermies to another tank, because these two are "diggers" and I thought they might disturbe the molting crabs.

I thought I would see the molting hermies in a month's time. However, the tank started to give a strong fishy smell. Today, I decided to investigate, and found both of them dead.

It did not look as though they were molting. One of them had lost both pincers. Maybe he could not dig his way up. Perhaps I should have dug them up earlier. *cries*

Could anyone offer any insight as to why they may have passed away? I really don't want any more casualties...

Cheyenne · Post by **Cheyenne** » 22 Jan 2007, 00:12

hmm. How old were they? If you had just gotten them, maybe they died of PPS. And what do you feed? They need calcium to molt. And also, do you use a dechlorinator? ou definately need that, and it burns their gills if they don't have it. anyone else?

iluvhermies · Post by **iluvhermies** » 22 Jan 2007, 12:31

Was your sand wet or dry? If it is dry when they bury they can not make their molting hole. It could have been from stress too.

jasper · Post by **jasper** » 23 Jan 2007, 09:20

Hi Cheyenne and iluvhermies. Thanks for the replies.

We have had these guys for about 3 months. The hermies' food tray always have a little bit of calci sand along with apple, fish, popcorn, and other nibbles plus some hermit crab pellets. There is also a cuttlefish bone in the tank.

As for water, we use bottled springwater.

The sand is always moist.

We thought we did the right thing by getting the larger tank, but the change of environment may have stressed them... We read a lot of hermie-related sites and thought we set up the tank exactly as it should be... These hermies were happy and active in the small plastic tank they used to live in....

*cries*

Jaci · Post by **Jaci** » 26 Jan 2007, 04:08

sounds like it was PPS unfortunately. i think that you made their time with you happy. it's hard losing something that became part of your family. there isn't much known about why hermies pass. when there aren't visible signs of any problems, we usually self-diagonse them with PPS, which is our own name for it. oh, it stands for post-purchase syndrome; aka stress. we're sorry for your loss.