Crab molting: one of the most fascinating things to watch in your fishtank

I think I have already told you that I am a huge fan of crustaceans. I have kept some freshwater crabs and crayfish in my aquarium and it is pretty safe to say these guys have always been the funniest and most interesting residents of the tank.

Crabs and crayfish are capable of a variety of crazy antics but one of the most fascinating things you can observe in them is actually the process of molting.

Now when it comes to molting, people usually associate it with snakes and reptiles only but crustaceans shed their skin too and it is a very interesting thing to watch.

The coolest thing about crustacean molting is that they actually shed their hard outer shell (aka the exoskeleton) in one piece. Therefore, if you stretch the molt out, it will look like a live crab once it gets dry. So what you see in this photo (that I took in Malta a few years ago) is just a crab´s skin, not the actual animal.

Prior to molting, the crab usually stops eating and starts reabsorbing some of the calcium carbonate from its old exoskeleton. The animal then secretes certain enzymes to separate the hard outer shell from the underlying skin. After that, a new, very soft shell beneath the old one is created and the crab is ready to molt. The whole process can take anything between an hour to several weeks, depending on the species and age.

I have actually managed to record the whole thing on my cell phone camera a few times and I am definitely going to share the video here but I first need to get familiar with D-tube so let me just show you a few more shots now. This is my pet crayfish´s molt when he was about 6 months old.

This is what he looked like after the molting. (I know, he is a cutie :))

Keeping certain parts of the molt can help you keep track of your little fella´s growth.

However, you shouldn’t take the whole molt out of the tank as it contains stuff that the animals need for healthy growth and development. If you leave it in the fish tank, they will eat in a few days.

As all the photos featured in this post were taken with my phone, this is also my entry for today´s #smartphonephotography contest organized by @juliank and @photocontests. I know some of the images are of terrible quality (cause they were taken with some prehistoric cellphone devices) but hopefully, at least the first shot can make a reasonable entry for the contest :)

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