did my hermit molt or die?

[lemiwinks]

this morning, i found some legs of a scarlet hermit on my sand. i checked for empty shells and i couldnt find any, and it looks like all of my scarlets are still in there.

i thought maybe one molted. i have a fairly large one that is always, always out and causing trouble with my anemone, and today he has been in his shell on top of a rock.

do hermits stay in their shell after molting?

the pieces looked like actual legs-werent transparent at all.

 

i have:

green clown goby

saddleback clown

LT anemone

3 shrimp

2 tiny blue hermits

nassarius snails

scarlet hermits

yellow polyps

 

i dont think any of these would of ate it, except for maybe the saddleback. hes a biggin. lol. is that possible?

[mandarin dragonet]

i think sometines in big ones they stay the red colour for a while, remove it anyway so you dont get build up, check for meat inside aswell.

[Dallassask]

well if its on top of a rock then yah its probably a molt, the first time my hermit molted (it was the only one in my tank) i thought something killed it, then i saw it walking around.

[Brandon]

I had the same thing a couple of weeks ago... red legs all over the sand bed. They looked like real legs, not a semi-transparent version like my shrimp molts. I assumed somebody decided they needed a new shell, so I counted my crabs. All of them are still alive and no new empty shells, so it must be a molt. I tested my water daily for 5 days just to make sure there wasn't a spike, and all is well.

[Osprey]

When my scarlet reef hermits molt, the skin looks just like the crab does, same color and everything.

 

When my skunk cleaner shrimp molts, the cast-off skin is totally clear like glass.

 

They molt a lot more often than they die if you are doing it right

[mandarin dragonet]

LOL

[cooksalot]

both my hermits molted recently and i thought the same thing you did...saw the claws and thought they were dead. they were out and about though within a day or two.