First surface molt

We're dealing with our first surface molt currently. One of the crabs that we adopted last week was probably just about ready to molt, and in the hassle of moving he was too weak and decided it was time for an above ground molt.

Fortunately he found a very large shell in the tank and climbed inside, protecting himself between the two shells from the other crabs. This also made it easy to lift him out and place him back in the ISO and give him some overhead cover. He was in the just barely moving, not holding onto the shell stage at the time. The following morning (today) he looked just about the same but was moving a little more, clearly getting ready to shed. By the end of the day today the exo is off, and the soft pinky is happily munching away at it.

I've never seen a molt before since they've all molted underground and away from the glass, so this is a pretty cool experience and fortunately it looks like the crab will be okay! How long should I keep the crab in isolation - just until it is moving around a lot again?

 

ISO him for at least two weeks. You want him to be normal for about a week or so before you move him. Congrats on the successful surface molt - I probably would've freaked out if it happened to me (I always get paranoid someone's going to surface molt while I'm at work...).

 

First of all, congratz that he/she's ok. emmac350's righrt, you should wait till a week after his/her full color is back and he/she's walking around normally.

 

Thanks! I was worried at first when I carefully picked up the shell and saw that the crab wasn't holding in but the fact that there was no smell and the crab just started that day was very reassuring.

 

That's so interesting to see!!! Mine always dig down too but at least with digging down you don't have to worry to much about them.

 

Wow! Like emma and OneOnion said, you should iso your crab for a week or two until he gets his color back and is very active. It's so cool how you could see him/her do it! When Ocean surface molted, I couldn't see anything because I thought she was dead and put her in a box then a week later I heard scratching from the box and there was Ocean, freshly molted! When Sherbert was surface molting I could see her exo shed, and then eat it, which was cool.

 

The molting crab is now strong enough to dig and has buried itself in the ISO. Just about another week until reintroduction

 

If he's digging down, give him longer. Until he's acting like normal + 1 week after that, don't reintroduce him.

 

Did you actually see the hermie shed his skin? I saw a video of it on youtube and it was freaklishly cool!!!