Crabs legs anyone??

Mountfordr

Mountfordr

AC Members
May 18, 2007
34
0
0
44
Stoke on Trent
:eek3: Hi all,

I think that I may have had a brevement. I 'had' three red legs and one blue in the tank, but this morning I have woken to pull four red legs and two arms which look like a red leg. I can only see the other three, could something have eaten him as I have an assorment of over twenty empty shells in the tank. Can anyone advise???


Thanks,

Mumfy.
icon_confused.gif
icon_confused.gif
 
Hi ya

are you sure they haven't just molted? silly question I know, but they do hide for a bit afterwards as well.
 
Really I didnt know that they did?? My shrimp has three or four times in the couple of moths that I have had him but I didnt realise hermits actually molted how can u tell??
 
Well they normally molt whole... so it looks like a dead crab in fact, but it could have molted and the legs come apart or something.. keep an eye on your tank for the next couple of days they may re-appear....
 
You wwouldnt believe it Neenie, I just found the missing crab and hes saf and well. How often will this happen and should I remove the debris, or let the clean up crew sort it out.
 
cool!! at least you know he's ok... well I never take out the molts I just leave them... my hermits don't molt as often as the shrimp to be honest, so I couldn't tell you how often they molt....
 
I don't know if this applies to marine hermits or not, but I know that for the pet hermits you should not remove the exoskeleton. The hermit actually eat the exoskeleton to regain the calcium needed to strenghthen their new exoskeleton.

Again...I don't know if applies to marine hermits.
 
Mine usually molt about every 2-3months. It depends upon what type of crab you have and their growth rate. For example, I had a red hairy hermit once. That thing constantly molted because it was constantly growing larger.

As for the molt skin, you can leave that in. It never seems to effect my water parameters and is a nice source of Ca for your aquarium. The hermit might not eat it but the sand cleanup will enjoy it.
 
Hey, just in case you don't know man. Make sure you have pleanty of extra shells about or your blue leg can and will kill snails and red hermits to make use of their shells.
 
So very true.. I had one blue who took out one of my very large Nassarius Snails one day, didn't like that shell and decided to take one of the many I have placed in my tank for their use.. LOL He has been and will be lovingly known as killer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom