Sally Lightfoot ??

Sregnar35

Sregnar35

The Man, The Myth, The Legend
Aug 21, 2003
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A week ago, my sally lightfoot disappeared under a rock and has been there ever since. I see a pile of his shell(legs, head) near where he was/is, but I can't spot him at all? Is this normal, how long do these crabs usually take to molt? He never used to hide, he was always out running around scaring everyone at my house!
 
I overturned the rock a bit he was under, and he is definetly not there, and isn't anywhere else in the tank. Unless they burrow in the sand for a week at a time, he is dead. I found all of his shell and just thought he molted. Now my emerald and sally lightfoot have died after 2 or 3 weeks in the tank? My specs are great, ammonia - 0, nitrites - 0, nitrates - 15. My only thought, I don't have tons of LR, and maybe they starved? I tried putting extra flakes in the tank, and there was a good amount settled to the bottom of the tank after i fed? The other inhabitants are doing awesome, 2 peppermint shrimp, 3 blue leg hermits, 4 snails, 2 clowns, 1 brazilian gramma? Any other thoughts as to why my 2 crabs died?
 
I don't think a crab can starve in 3 weeks. One possibility is that they attempted to molt and failed. I am not certain what would cause that, but all sorts of stresses can mess molting up. No, it's not likely to be iodine.

They might have succeeded in molting, but somebody ate them when they were nice and soft and tasty. Maybe the gramma couldn't resist. Do you have any large stars, like serpents or brittle stars?

There are presumably other explanations, but that's what I can come up with.

To give you an idea of how things can go wrong when you molt, here's a little sequence from saltreef.com:http://www.saltreef.com/PhotoStudies/PeppermintDeath.htm
 
Nope, no other critters than what is listed. The gramma is half the size of the sally lightfoot, and the emerald was belly up when I found him, all in one piece, not a scratch on him. I found 95% of the sally lightfoot too, he was just in pieces, like he molted, and there is nothing else of him?
 
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