How to Know if a Pet Hermit Crab is Sick

A hermit crab's illness can be traumatic for both owner and pet. Fungal infections, infestations, shell discarding and loss of limbs can stress your hermit crab and leave it susceptible to serious illness. Learn how to identify possible illness in your crab.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Check your hermit crab's appearance. Discolorations may signal fungal infections that need treatment.
2. Inspect the hermit crab's limbs. Dropped limbs may be a sign of a serious illness or injury that your hermit crab has suffered. However, it may also just be part of its natural molting process. Familiarize yourself with the molting process and compare your crab's present and normal behavior to determine if the limb loss is injury, illness or molting related.
3. Observe your hermit crab's behavior. Sluggishness or other odd behavior may be indicative of something as simple as a part of its habitat being uncomfortable (such as temperature changes or chlorinated water) or a disease.
   
   
   
4. Search for infestations. Mites, flies and other bugs may be stressing your crab and making it ill due to an unclean habitat. Check all areas of the habitat, the hermit crab's shells and the hermit crab's body for signs of infestation.
5. Note your hermit crab's relationship to its shell. If your crab has discarded its shell and not adopted another one, your crab may be ill or stressed.
   

Tips & Warnings

• Never keep or spray chemicals around your hermit crab's habitat. Doing so may poison them. Even household air fresheners may be detrimental to their health.
• Avoid placing your hermit crabs on carpets, where chemicals may be present. Instead, place crabs on hard floors (like linoleum surfaces) where chemicals are easily cleaned.
• Do not feed your crab expired food or keep old food in its habitat.