I think i killed my crab

[mak0124]

Hi. My hermit crab has been under the sand for about a month now. I thought he was molting, however i saw new "foot" prints a week ago. Tonight, curious where he was i picked up my coconut hut. I saw the back of his shell. Im posiive hes molting since he did not move at all, and his water and food dish has been full for a month almost. Im scared however cause in the process of picking up the hut, sand pushed into his hole, leaving him with no hole, now completly buried under sand. I panicked and tried to move the sand without disturbing him and moved even more sand! Idk what to do.

[emmac350]

How much sand is on your crab? If it's just a little bit it shouldn't be a problem (if the crab is fairly close to the surface). Leave him/her alone and hopefully everything will be okay! As hard as it is, as crab owners we have to let them do what they need to for molting.

Edited to add:

With your crab's size, a molt and subsequent recovery could easily take 2-6 months, so open the tank every day to make sure that you don't smell dead crab (very strong fishy smell). Once you hit around the 6 month mark then you can look for your crab.