Does Hermit Crab Molt look like a real crab?

Hi, I'm wondering how close a hermit crab's molted shell looks to the real crab? For example, I have seen molts from my cleaner shrimp and they look like a translucent shell, easy to see that it's a molt and not the real shrimp. I found my biggest hermit crab next to another body of a hermit crab and I was assuming it was his molt--but this was no translucent shell! It had all the colors and looked like a dead hermit crab outside of its shell rather than just a molt. However, I know for a fact that I've only had 2 hermit crabs in the tank for months and both of them were alive and well when I spotted this extra (molt?). Also the mystery molt was high on top of a rock next to one of my hermit crabs so I'm thinking he chose that place to molt--it's just that it didn't look like an empty shell it looked like a real (dead) hermit. It was a molt right? Hermit crab molts are like live hermits?? :-O

 

oh yeah, should you leave molted shells in the aquarium so that other inverts can eat this shell for calcium? or are molten shells more waste product adding to nitrates down the line? assume good water parameters.

 

Yes is looks like a real crab but the back of the shell is a bit transparent. When ever my blue legs shed the legs look just like a dead crab's legs.

 

I always have to check the molts of my large hermit crab because they aren't translucent like my shrimp. My hermits molts are coloured and looks like the hermit itself. I always leave the molts in there and my cleaner, peppermints, glass and pistol shrimps feed on them, they are normally gone in a few days.

 

I always leave mine in too. I have my hands in my tank often enough without going diving every week when another hermit sheds. Just like invert phil my other crabs and shrimp eat the left over shells fairly fast.

I sometimes fish out the molts from my sally light foot as they are bigger and my wife things they look gross.