i am so incredibly confused right now...

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tcarola154

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jan 7, 2006
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ok... so i came home today and found the front half of a dead hermit crab on my liverock in my 10gal. I quickly went through the whole... i hope theres nothing wrong with my tank thing and then realized all my hermit crabs were still alive.... I know I have three larger hermits (1-1/2 inch shell) and three small ones (3/4 of an inch) and they are all accounted for... so i have no idea where this thing came from. Anyone ever heard of a hermit hitch hiking on lr without a shell?? haha
 
Its probably a molt. Hermits grow and shed their skin in order to grow larger. Many have thought they had a dead crab also.
 
Are you sure it is a crab and not simply the left over empty body from a molt? Hermits molt every so often (similiar to what snakes do) and shed off their old outer body and a new one forms and hardens. This can look just like the crab itself if you have never seen this before.

The back of the body will have a tear in it (if it is a molt) where the crab was able to "pull out" of its old body. It will also be slightly "clearer" than the real crab because now the body is emtpy.
 
I've seen my hermits battling each other before (the silly little guys).
I've also gotten a few freebie hermits when buying sand bed additives (like uh, live sand activator type stuff?)
But the previous two posters are probably correct.. I reacted much the same way when I saw my first 'dead hermit'.

They are pretty hardy little guys... saw one of my large snails jamming up my maxijet 1200 with a rotatiting head on it the other day.. The snail finally got itself loose and there was a hermit crab standing right in the path of the now rotating powerhead... little guy got shot across the tank into the wall...
got up and wobbled off... I had to laugh a good laugh over that one..
 
no it wasnt a molt... i was curious and decided to disect it (gotta love having a bio teacher for a mom... and all her disecting kits laying around) there was definately like meat or whatever you wanna call it inside...
 
The shell could be back in the rocks. It could have outgrown it and was looking for a new home without protection and was killed.
 
Would not surprise me. I had a 2" emerald appear out of mine over a month after it was put in. As well as probably at least 20 other crabs, 5 mantis, at least one pistol shrimp and....... Someone on here had a niger trigger come out of their rock after they put it in from the LFS.
 
Ok, well I knew there was a lot of crazy stuff found in lr... but i just thought this was weird until I just read the niger trigger thing because thats just crazy. well i know i wont be surprised any more if i find anything else.
 
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