Recently my porcelain crab molted and when he did I noticed he was missing both of his big claws. He ended up dying the next day. So my question is , is this something that just happens sometime? What do they need to aid them in molting? I would like to get another because he was really social and would come right up to the turkey baster when I would spot feed him, but I wanna make sure it doesn't happen again. His tankmates were a yellow clown goby, a royal gramma, a pom pom crab(that was just added the same day he died), a candy stripe pistol shrimp and a yellow rose goby and a two spot blenny.
Its hard to say exactly what happened to it. I had a porcelain crab that took an unfortunate trip into a powerhead when his RBTA decided to commit anemone suicide. He faired better than the RBTA as I found him sitting on top of the powerhead (and the RBTA was blended into bits and no longer existed.) However at some point during the unfortunate event he lost a claw. So I moved him down where he could find another host...however within a matter of minutes one of my shrimp came out and ripped his other claw off! Within another minute, nassarius snails and crabs had him flipped over and ate him. I guess the point of my story is, the other critters in the tank seem to sense distress and it doesn't take long for bad things to happen.
It does just happen sometimes. Mine lost his claws during a molt but was more fortunate than Jim's in the fact that none of his tank mates took advantage of his clawless state. He ended up getting a new, although much smaller pair, the next molt. Like all inverts iodine is important in the molting process but so is privacy. I Think damage is more likely to happen if they are disturbed and struggle during the molt.
Jen.