hermit crab?

Question

I am a new hermit crab owner, I've had my crab for about a month, and for the last 2 days, it does not come out of its shell. How do I know if it has died, it does not smell.....help......

Thank you all for the information. When I got home last night, and picked up the crab, he fell out of the shell, kinda smelly too. I will definately do some more research before I get another one. Im not sure why it died, had fresh water, its a land crab, had fresh food daily, temp in tank was 70, tank was clean.....?????

Answer 1

Are you sure the crab is dead? When they molt they shed their skin and sometimes sink way down deep in the shell until thier new exoskeleton hardens. At that time they also become more shy. If he smelled really bad then he might be dead but not neccessarily.
If he is dead then dont stress it probably wasnt your fault he may have been sick from the pet store, they sometimes hold on for a long time before they finally die.

Answer 2

Do you have it in a salt water aquarium?? If so you need to make sure that the Ph and the salinity (saltiness of the tank water) are ok. The pH should be 8.3 and the saltiness of the water should be 1.024-1.026 at the most. You can ger testing kits at aquarium stores. If you have tropical fish as well it is important to test for Nitrites, Nitrates and Ammonia. What are you feeding them? Regular tropical fish food is what we feed our fish and the crabs eat the food that the fish don't get to.

**** Important note to know. When we first started our tank we had 2 hermit crabs and one day we saw what we were sure were a pair of crab legs. We thought for sure that one of the fish must have gotten to the crab and ate it. We now know better after throwing away the crab shell, because it happened to the other crab as well. This time we left the shell in the tank as decoration. However in the next day or so the shell had new legs coming out of it. We found out that hermit crabs molt or loos their outer skeleton or their legs about once every month or so. SO if you see what look like crab legs laying at the bottom of the tank don't throw away the shell because they are probably still alive. You can also leave the molted legs in the tank because there are other organisms in the tank that will break them down as part of their food chain. I hope this was helpful.

Answer 3

I think if they die they usually will come out of the shell first. Anyway, they do tend to stay inside the shell quite a bit. You can also find this info online if you search for Hermit crabs.

Answer 4

Once it's dark, place something that will rattle near him. You'll be able to hear if he comes out of the shell.

We had one that kept getting out every night. It was kind of scary because we had to hunt for him the next morning. We even had him in a large fishbowl with chickenwire on top and a brick to hold the wire in place. He moved it and got out.

Answer 5

is this a land hermit crab or an aquatic one

hey why did I get a thumbs down, there are 2 kinds of hermit crabs and it would be useful to know which kind

Answer 6

They are mainly night creatures. You may rarely see them come out of their shell. Place their shell on top of their food, or in their water dish. They will get sick of being in the water dish as move away from it. If you see that he's/she's out of the dish then you'll know if it's alive. Also, give it something to climb on, like a make shift fence, they like that.

Answer 7

Is he eating his food? Make sure you put a larger shell in soon that he can go into to. He may be coming out when you aren't around? Take him out of the cage and put him on the floor,see if he moves around out of that spot...but DON'T let him get lost! good luck

Answer 8

I would just watch it. If it won't come out within 3 weeks I would poke it with a stick.

Answer 9

Pick it up and see if it moves when you touch it. If it hasn't moved in 2 days I'm sorry to tell you it might be dead.

Answer 10

If you pick it up and poke it gently and it does not move then its dead.