Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had Nugget since February. He is a good-sized crab, about 3" from claw to end of body. In July, I bought Peek-A-Boo from a beach shop in FLA. He was a smaller crab. Everything seemed OK, but a few weeks after having him, he lost a leg. I isolated him to another tank. The next day he lost his big claw and then died.

I changed out all the sand (play sand on bottom calci sand on top) and bought a thermometer and relative humidity guage. Temp is about 75 and humidity stays between 70% and 80%.

2 weeks ago I bought Jackie Leggs at the same large pet chain store that I bought Nugget. JL is bigger than Peek-A-Boo, but not as big as Nugget. Things have been going great--and then two days ago he lost a leg. Just now he lost his big claw. He's still alive, but I'm doubtful that he will stay that way.

What can be going on? Nugget seems fine. Could there be some type of aggression going on that I don't see? Once, right after I got JL, I saw Nugget using his small pincher to touch JL's legs.

I read so much about how you should keep more than 1 crab, but am now having my doubts.

Please help.

I dont think anyone post here anymore try here
http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=f2feb524c7bc9fa35750db1389c93b08

They have been a lot of help for me and my crabs. I found this info there about dropping limbs.

Many people who bring home crabs fresh from the pet store experience this in the first month of owning them -- the crabs seem to just "fall apart" one leg at a time. Let me state for clarity, that this is not molting! What your crab is doing is responding to all the stress of being taken from his tropical home, taken to a wholesaler's and then shipped to a pet store. That is a lot of stress on any animal (even people!) and for a small animal like a hermit crab, it can have devastating consequences.

Here is another link to the same site I posted above.

http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/index.php