Emerald crabs keep dying

Jeeperz · Sep 4, 2020

Over the past 3-4 years I've had numerous emerald crabs. They all live a short while and perish. Even if I supplement with algae sheets. I've tried dosing iodine with no help. My last set of 3, 2 died in qt and one lived about a week after adding to display. My last one from reef cleaners was a good looking medium to smaller one, lasted a week and was just found dead today. It would refuse algae sheets though. Any thoughts? I can keep sps and anemone and some lps. Can't keep zoa's alive. I'm trying to get at least one to help my hair algae problem but they all die.

Dinodanger · Sep 4, 2020

Unlikely but copper will kill emerald crabs might be other contaminants try a icp test if not maybe lack of algae and meaty foods can’t think of any other reason apart from toxins

stanleo · Sep 4, 2020

What is your calcium reading? I ask because in my first tank a few years ago, I could never get my calcium above 300 and I couldn’t keep emerald crabs or cleaner shrimps either. Went through several. This tank, my calcium is a steady 480 and I have had an emerald and a cleaner skunk for 18 months.

Pistondog · Sep 4, 2020

Jeeperz said:
Over the past 3-4 years I've had numerous emerald crabs. They all live a short while and perish. Even if I supplement with algae sheets. I've tried dosing iodine with no help. My last set of 3, 2 died in qt and one lived about a week after adding to display. My last one from reef cleaners was a good looking medium to smaller one, lasted a week and was just found dead today. It would refuse algae sheets though. Any thoughts? I can keep sps and anemone and some lps. Can't keep zoa's alive. I'm trying to get at least one to help my hair algae problem but they all die.

I think, like urchins they are sensitive to salinity and other water parameter swings.
If I get a big slug of rodi because I forgot to plug it back in, I've lost crabs or urchins.

Jeeperz · Sep 5, 2020

I have not checked most any parameters lately but when I was calcium was always over 400, I do keep salinity between 1.025/1.026 unless I'm qt ing from Petco, they keep it around 1.020 to help defend against ich. My displays have auto top offs, just my qt is manual daily. Not much issue with snails besides trochus are short lived, only 1 or 2 make it through qt. The dwarf ceriths seem to do good.