I have a small land hermit crab that i bought from a pet store almost a year ago. he recently had a mite infestation because i was out of town for 2 months and my parents didnt correctly take care of him. the mites are gone now after i cleaned him and his tank up nice but now he wont come out of hiding. he stayes under this little pot i have in the corner he had easy access in and out but he pushed all the sand up around the edge so he would have to dig to get out. later i opened the tank to feed him but it smelled terrible i thought he had died! i checked and he was alive and well and he had not shed either so the smell didnt come from rotten exoskeleton. i cleaned the tank for good measure and when i put him back in he went straight to the same place and the bad smell was back the next day WHAT IS GOING ON!!!??? please help!
My hermit crabs have never been very active and tend to hide in the same place all the time. What kind of substrate do you use? i've heard the calci-sand/ colored hermit crab sand can begin smelling when kept damp for long periods of time. Also certain bacterial infections can cause an odor. Have you tried cleaning him and his shell?
i use new aquarium grade sand from my local pet store, i cleaned it very well before putting it in my tank, and like i said i gave him a nice warm bath in very lightly brackish water, i cleaned the entire tank and all the deco also. plus he used to be very active no he hardly moves wont eat either. he shed about 2 days before he got like this
I don't know. what kind of food do you feed him? Hermit crabs sometimes dig down and hide food, perhaps he hid some food and the food has begun rotting?
i tried the pre packaged petstore food, but he didnt eat it. then i tried fresh fruit andveggies but he hardly at that either. then i started feeding him a mix of my fish foods that included goldfish flakes, freeze dried blood worms, dehydrated daphnia and mysis and he loves it! eats ( or apparently hides) all of it within 2 days. but now suddnely after i cleaned his crabitat to get rid of the mites he stopped eating alltogether
You say he just molted? sometimes after they molt they become lethargic to the point of even sometime being in a coma. They don't move much after they molt because their exoskeletons have not hardened yet. occasionally hermit crabs (for reasons unknown to me) do sometimes smell after they molt. The best thing to do is to leave them alone for a few days (as hard as it may seem) just make sure to put out fresh water and salt water for him and put some food in there but remove it after an hour or two if he doesn't eat it.
what troubles me is that the molt was almost 3 weeks ago so his skin is nice and hard now. i know they are supposed to be social creatures but he killed all his tank mates -shudder- he had 3 others, smaller than him and he tore their limbs off. they all had lots of extra shells to move into also
I haven't experienced it but some hermit crabs do appear to go into a 'coma' for a month or two. did you remove the exoskeleton after he molted? (I am still a strong believer that at least part of the enclosure should be a coconut fiber/dirt substrate as sand does tend to smell if kept moist for long periods of times.)
I had coconut fibers but thats what i had to throw out when Fluffee got mites. i used sand before with hermit crabs and it never smelled. thanks alot for all your helpful ideas though
your welcome. hope i was able to help (sorry it took so long to get back to you.)
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