First time owner and fasinated!

[SuzEQ]

it started a few weeks ago when my sister told her 7 year old son he had to give his hermit crab away. He was not giving Mr Krabs, a purple pincher, the attention he needed, so I told him I would take him. I started doing a lot of reading on the kind of care they need. So we set him up in a 10 gallon aquarium, and 2 new friends! Lucky, also a purple pincher, and Baby, a caribean hermit. They just had sand, but didnt know it needed to be moist. I also bought eco-earth and mixed some sand with it. They love it! About 2 weeks later i thought Lucky was stuck under a fake wood climbing decoration, because he didnt move for almost 2 days. So I picked him up, and I thought he somehow dried out and was dead! his exoskeleton was sitting there. I thought it was weird, because it didnt stink. I picked up and threw away what i thought was his dead body, and I even looked inside his shell and didnt see anything. I rinsed the shell out with faucet water a couple times, and looked to see if anything else would come out the shell. Still didnt see anything. I figured I would boil the shell when I had time to clean it and put it back in the tank. I sat it on a napkin and left it on the counter. The next evening the shell wasnt on the napkin. I found him in the corner of the counter behind the coffee pot. I picked it up and was tickled to death to see a much smaller Lucky inside! He sure lived up to the name he has! That is how I first learned about the molting process. He is still buried in the eco-earth/sand mixture. This happened almost a week ago. I just hope he is ok without getting to eat his exoskeleton. Oh! and I talk about them so muck at work that a co-workers son gave me his hermit crab he bought on their trip to the coast. He is a purple pincher also. He is huge!

[appps]

Welcome to the club :-). Sounds like you are off to a great start and well on your way to being just as addicted as the rest of us :-)