Sweet7 Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 So I have a fairly new BC29 that I have been running for a little over two months now and it fully cycled two weeks ago so I added my cleaner crew and a few coral frags. Over the past two weeks I have lost my emerald crab, electric blue hermit, one peppermint shrimp, and longspine urchin. All seemed to do well and were all eating and moving about the tank. Then out of the blue I started finding bodies... I did catch and send for a ride on the porcelain express 3 LR hitchhicking crabs, two gorilla crabs and a small white crab that I couldn't ID, which I though may have been the culpurates. However after 3 days from the last crab caught, I found my emerald crab dead and I'm baffled! It was doing so well! I have 30 pounds of LR and LS, water test shows normal levels (ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5.0, calcium 480, kh 8) stock lights, modded filter. In the tank currently are two reef hermits, one peppermint shrimp, Halloween hermit, two dwarf hermits, 3 Astraea snails, 3 cerith snails, two nassrius snails, brittle star and 3 bumblebee snails. Corals are a small zoa, green polyp Duncan, and birds nest coral. Any thoughts on what it could be would be much appreciated. I'm hoping this is something I can fix and not just a sting of bad luck! Link to comment
Sweet7 Posted June 23, 2014 Author Share Posted June 23, 2014 Did you feed them? Yep, they had plenty of algae to munch on plus I feed the entire tank some mysis shrimp every couple of days. I target feed my Duncan 3 shrimp per head (3) and the remainder, maybe 5-6 shrimp (depending on the size chunk I break off), go to the rest of the tank critters. Nothing crazy, just supplementing, trying not to over feed. Link to comment
Tamberav Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 How did you acclimate? Dose or dip any corals in iodine? Sounds like you added a lot too fast, could have been a spike that cleared up quickly before you could test. Generally when people add a CUC, they just add snails/hermits. Not shrimps, urchins ect, they need more stable conditions and add more to the bioload. It also sounds like most of the sensitive ones were the ones to perish (which could also be acclimation). Link to comment
Sweet7 Posted June 24, 2014 Author Share Posted June 24, 2014 How did you acclimate? Dose or dip any corals in iodine? Sounds like you added a lot too fast, could have been a spike that cleared up quickly before you could test. Generally when people add a CUC, they just add snails/hermits. Not shrimps, urchins ect, they need more stable conditions and add more to the bioload. It also sounds like most of the sensitive ones were the ones to perish (which could also be acclimation). That sounds spot on, I didn't think about that. I definitely think I added to much to fast. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, totally gaped it. I did drip acclimate all of them, doubling the water in the bucket then reducing it to half and doubling it again. I was worried I may have jumped the gun and it now seems as if that is the case, learned the hard way. Thanks again for the info! Link to comment
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