Made a Time-lapse of my hermit crab changing shell

[Gore15]

I saw my hermit crab playing around with some massive shells I have in my tank and I thought to make a time-lapse of what is happening. I had no idea that it will actually change shell considering it is very small compared to the shells in the tank! But well, it did change shell and here is the time-lapse.

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/EZa5T1n

 

I am a bit worried though! The crab is too small for that shell and it had hard time walking with it. I wonder if he can get back to where his original shell is and go back into it. (I did not change location of its original shell).

 

This is the same crab that killed two babylonia snails. My best guess is that it likes fancy shells and just kill or take any fancy shell it sees.

[mitten_reef]

5 minutes ago, Gore15 said:

My best guess is that it likes fancy shells and just kill or take any fancy shell it sees.

that's funny. 

If I recall, this is the left-claw (i.e. one big left claw)?  I had one once that was just straight up a serial killer of snails.  Also, my crabs switch back and forth between shells all the time, even when it wasn't even for an "upgrade", so to speak.  

[rough eye]

i have one that changed shells 4 times in the past week or so and just molted a couple days ago.

[Gore15]

I am getting some shells bigger than the one it had and smaller than the one it is living in now. 
 

I should see which ones it is gonna pick. The fancy edgy ones, the super smooth marvel like ones or it will go for something simple. 
 

will report back. 😁

32 minutes ago, rough eye said:

i have one that changed shells 4 times in the past week or so and just molted a couple days ago.

When the molt, would they come back and find their old shells? What if water stream moves it or something?

[rough eye]

i went to the dollar store and got 2 small jars of shells, boiled them for a few minutes in distilled water, then after they cooled i scattered 8 or ten of varying sizes around the sand. one crab has never swapped shells yet but the other did, and is in a shell surprisingly larger than the one he started with. they're all over the place so i'm sure they've inspected every shells around. my water never pushes any of the shells around but the crabs certainly do.

 

i'm not sure what they do when they molt, it happened overnight the 2 times mine molted.