Help Crabs & Shrimp are dying

[Trouble1375]

How do you acclimate your inverts?

Float for 15 minutes then add 60 ml water every 10 minutes til bag is full. Empty half and repeat until full again. Usually no less than an hour. With the blood shrimp and the coral banded we drip acclimated for 2-3 hours

 

[Trouble1375]

When my high salinity issues began it was the anemone who went first. Crabs and shrimp were next. I had a bad floating hydrometer that allowed me to be negligent and my salinity eventually reached 1.035 over a period of time. All the fish survived, acans, zoas, xenia, hammer, and even a red monti survived. I didn't even find the problem until I purchased a refractometer just because it was on sale for 20 bucks.

I would recheck salinity.

Thank you. We are using a refracometer. Salinity was 1.024 last night.

 

[W1ngz]

Float for 15 minutes then add 60 ml water every 10 minutes til bag is full. Empty half and repeat until full again. Usually no less than an hour. With the blood shrimp and the coral banded we drip acclimated for 2-3 hours

I've had issues with long acclimations for inverts before. I do it quick now, float for 20-30 minutes, pull half the bag water and replace with tank water, leave it 15 minutes then pour the bag through a net into a bucket to be discarded and drop them in the tank.

 

[BlueDamselReef]

I've always had the worst luck with shrimp! I can keep everything else, but shrimp, always die for me.

 

[Trouble1375]

I've always had the worst luck with shrimp! I can keep everything else, but shrimp, always die for me.

Before the Nem Nuke we had cleaner shrimp, pistol shrimp and blood shrimp all happy together now we can’t keep crabs or shrimp. So far lots of helpful tips on here.

Will be posting my test results from 9/7 when I get home tonight to hopefully get some more helpful feedback and stopping at my LFS on the way home for copper test kit. I test everything every Saturday and alkalinity on Wednesday and Saturday.

 

[William Mumford]

The few days is the scary part. Is there anyway you could have got copper in the system? Also do you feed enough for them to be getting enough to eat?

 

[Trouble1375]

The 2 shrimp were the few days. The crabs last a month or so. They are eating some leftover hair algae, pellets, flakes, seaweed sheets (the urchins love these).

Will be testing for copper tonight.

 

[Jon Fishman]

We have done 5 30 gallon water changes since the anemone nuke.

On what total volume? 5 30g water changes on a 400g for-instance isn’t probably enough, but I doubt the Nem is the problem

 

[Trouble1375]

On what total volume? 5 30g water changes on a 400g for-instance isn’t probably enough, but I doubt the Nem is the problem

125 gallon plus 30 gallon (I think) sump running algae scrubber, bioballs, filter floss & carbon

Tank had done through full cycle diatoms brown algae green algae etc prior to the nem issue then went through hair algae phase after the nem - I spent days hand pulling hair algae from every crack and crevice until it only remains in the sump on the algae scrubber.

 

[Trouble1375]

As of 9/10/19

Salinity 1.023
pH. 8.0
Temp. 82.5
Alkalinity. 9.6
Ammonia. 0
Nitrite. 0
Nitrate. 0
Phosphate. .0333
Calcium. 420
Magnesium. 1120
Iodine .02 - was .06 on 9/7
Strontium. 22
Copper. 0

And the mystery continues. Not sure what caused the iodine drop. We have now setup a drip dose for it.

 

[Trouble1375]

Our mystery was solved when it finally got really bad. One return pump was going bad and sending shocks through the tank. It finally shorted out completely and nuked the whole tank.