Not eating old exos?

[emmac350]

So I'm in the middle of cleaning the sand out of my old 10g (it's been empty for a few months; this is highly overdue) but I've been finding TONS of exo all over it. I've been saving the pieces (in some cases, half a BP and the bottom two segments of several legs) and putting them in the crabs' food bowl in hopes that whoever it belonged to will eat it.

My question is - don't the crabs need the nutrition from the exo? Or has my feeding them provided the nutrients they need so they don't need to eat the exo? There's no discoloring on it, and no visible reason for them to have NOT eaten it, so I'm rather confused.

I think the pieces belonged to a combination of Rack, Benny, and Toodles as they're all reddish pinkish colored. That's two PPs and a bright reddish orange accented E for anyone who's not familiar with my crabs.

[vckums]

I've noticed that mine won't eat the BP's or tips as I find them in the substrate as well. Maybe they got their fill of it or the others don't need it. Can't hurt to keep offering it to them. Maybe crush it up so it's eaten more easily.

[ladybug15057]

I have noticed this with some of our molters too. They eat the torso, head, and the tops of the limbs but do not munch the large pincher or the bottom hard segments of their limbs. I usually crush these and offer them back to our molters. (this would be hard for one to do though if their hermies burrow to molt) But the ones here who stop eating after the soft 'goodie' parts are gone harden nicely and get their nice coloring back too.

Edited to add: Now if a molter eats barely any or none of their exo it is thought that there maybe something toxic either in their exo or it came in contact with something toxic.

[emmac350]

The exo pieces came from quite a few areas of the old tank, so I don't think the pieces are all from one crab. There are three two-segment leg pieces, about half of the BP, and a variety of much smaller bottom leg segments from one of the PPs.

The exo hasn't gotten any attention in the food bowl yet...but they've only been moving around in the tank for an hour or so at this point and they're still close to their original positions. We'll see in the morning.

[Wai]

I couldn't find anything of Eris's exo when he first moulted, so maybe he did eat all of it. However, he left a leg and his little claw exo behind after his second moult.