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- This topic has 8 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 5 months ago by
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Hello there!
I am a brand new hermit crab owner, and jumped into purchasing three hermit crabs at Petco on Friday. I mainly did this to rescue my sister’s hermit crab she got at the fair because she was definitely not being properly cared for. I have been doing tons of research, reading books, poking around on websites, and doing everything I can for my crabbies. I love them to death.
But I am in desperate need of closure. Today I woke up to find one of my crabs naked and hiding in the little cave I have in the crabitat. I was so scared, but I had read online that maybe all he needed was a new shell (he was in a clear glass shell before). So I put two right next to him. I then ran to the pet store to get a humidifier, because I knew I was having problems keeping the humidity level and knew this was stressing them out. When I got back home, he wasn’t moving, even after I gently sprayed him with dechlorinated water.
I got so upset that I had to call my family to my apartment and had my dad remove my beloved Zoidberg from the cage. My dad claims he smelled really bad. I returned him to the pet store in a little box.
What did I do wrong? What could I have done to save him? Was I right in taking him back to the pet store? I just couldn’t bear to see him like that, and I really think he was dead. I don’t think he was molting but I am not sure.
Any insight or advice would be GREATLY appreciated. I feel horrible and just want my Zoidy back… :'(
If he smelled real bad then he was most likely dead. Don’t be too hard on yourself, if you’ve only had it less than a couple of weeks there is probably not much you could have done to prevent it’s death to begin with. Most pet stores don’t provide adequate habitat for them and they get very stressed.
Since it’s been over a month since your post and you haven’t added to your post I assume your other crabs are ok? I like to bring new crabs home and keep them in a tank for a couple of weeks where they can’t molt. I just let them eat, drink and sleep during that time and then introduce them to the big tank where they can molt when they want to.
Regardless of whether you do everything right or everything wrong, some new crabs will still die due to conditions they’ve been in at the pet store. All you can do is your best and hope for the best.
Thanks for the reply. 🙂
My other three crabs are doing well!
Oh okay. I think the problem was that the pet store didn’t take the best care of Zoidberg, and being in the glass shell made him stressed to the point that he couldn’t handle it. I’ve done a lot of research on glass shells and they are mostly terrible for hermit crabs. :/
Thank you for all of your input. ^^
Shawn is right.
If you know the entire process of how hermit crabs come to a pet store you would be amazed how any of them survive. They are gathered off the beach and then piled in burlap bags with no food or water until there are enough crabs to merit a shipment. They may be coming from overseas making the trip longer but they are shipped in the cargo hold of a plane. The arrive at the wholesaler where some of them are forced into painted and now GLASS shells. Then they are packed up again, probably on a truck this time, to go to the stores. They arrive at petstores dehydrated and starving. They are then dumped into the petstore tank with crappy food pellets and a shallow bit of water, usually no humidity and pawed at by little kids until someone buys them and takes them home. Nothing in this process is good for hermit crabs.We have a document on how to reduce PPS deaths in new crabs but nothing is fool proof.
That is such a horrible process… 🙁 It makes me sad to think about it.
Thank you, I will definitely have a look!
I don’t understand the glass shells. Most people who see their abdomens say “yuck” or some other such thing to that effect. My crabs tend to use the darker shells rather than the lighter ones, I can only assume they feel safer inside a shell that lets in less light through the shell. I have one small crab that stays in a whale’s eye shell, the rest are in green turbos. I’ve put in turbo shells with the stripe ground into them and some that were ground down to white all over and no crab has ever stayed in them. The only thing I can think of that the glass shells would be useful for is for decoration, like a glass vase filled with them sitting on a shelf.
I think they provide a cool view of hermit crabs and could even be educational and informative but ONLY if they suited the crabs. However, the crabs absolutely hate these shells. The best thing to do with them now is to keep them on a shelf. ^^ It was a neat concept though.
This is called post-purchase stress or syndrome
Hermit crabs are surprisingly resilient
But still some will die
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