Mystery clean up crew deaths

edsbeaker · Jul 4, 2017

I was wondering if someone could point me to a likely cause of an entire clean up crew dying within minutes of a water change. All other fish and coral seem fine. Temperature, salinity and pH were identical.

I am using red sea pro salt, mixed yesterday with RODI with 0 TDS reading. pH was the same as tank water. My alkalinity in the tank is a little high at 10.5, and I'm letting that naturally get lower before I restart dosing, But Red sea pro is at 10.7 anyway.

Phosphate .01
Nitrate 2.5
Salinity 1.025

I am an experienced reefer, and this has happened now twice with this 3 month old set up. I'm thinking that I am overlooking something so obvious and basic that I am embarrassed asking!

edsbeaker · Jul 4, 2017

UPDATE: after about 45 minutes, the hermit crabs started slowly moving around, and are acting totally normal now. Two of my trochus snails have come around too but so far no movement on the turbos. This was the weirdest thing. The hermits looked dead with their feet hanging out of the shells like they were frozen, and then suddenly all came around

Pugfishluv3 · Jul 4, 2017

How much water did you change? It's possible you changed to much and put them into shock.

edsbeaker · Jul 4, 2017

Only about 20%, but I do agree that something related to the water put them into shock. I just can't figure it out. I'm wondering if something is getting through my RODI filter. I have a newer 6 stage, though.

BlueCursor · Jul 5, 2017

Snails are sensitive to changes. They have to be acclimated more slowly than fish.

When you do a 20% water change you need to match parameters as best as possible, and add the 20% back in in small amounts like you are acclimating.

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 5, 2017

Its a dumb thought, but are the buckets clean? is the water stored too long with organics and maybe an ammoina build up?
I'm doing 10 gal WC in 60 gal ov vol and 5g in 30 gal of vol with IO. its got high alk too. it shouldn't be an issue.

edsbeaker · Jul 5, 2017

BlueCursor said:
Snails are sensitive to changes. They have to be acclimated more slowly than fish.

When you do a 20% water change you need to match parameters as best as possible, and add the 20% back in in small amounts like you are acclimating.

I've never had issues with snails being sensitive. My acclimating of them is basically match the temp and in they go. They didn't have any problems like this when I brought them home from the LFS and that water was probably less like my tank water then the water change water which really matched my parameters very closely. I'm thinking it's a problem with something in the water itself, not the water change amount. Thanks, though.

edsbeaker · Jul 5, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
Its a dumb thought, but are the buckets clean? is the water stored too long with organics and maybe an ammoina build up?
I'm doing 10 gal WC in 60 gal ov vol and 5g in 30 gal of vol with IO. its got high alk too. it shouldn't be an issue.

It's not a dumb thought at all!
I think you are right. My water goes directly from the water mixing container which is food safe, directly into the tank, without using buckets, but I wonder if something got into either the container or possibly the salt is contaminated. I just opened this container of salt. I think it's best to clean out the 20 gallon container and see what happens next time. I'm hoping that is it! Thanks

jason_mazzy · Jul 5, 2017

take an invert drop into fresh water and then back into saltwater. it will "be dead" for a a short while then all of a sudden wake up in my experience. I do a freshwater dip on certain corals that I cannot bayer dip and I have gotten a few cool serpent stars that way.

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 5, 2017

edsbeaker said:
It's not a dumb thought at all!
I think you are right. My water goes directly from the water mixing container which is food safe, directly into the tank, without using buckets, but I wonder if something got into either the container or possibly the salt is contaminated. I just opened this container of salt. I think it's best to clean out the 20 gallon container and see what happens next time. I'm hoping that is it! Thanks

Only other dum thought is to pick up some cheap IO and try it.

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 5, 2017

jason_mazzy said:
take an invert drop into fresh water and then back into saltwater. it will "be dead" for a a short while then all of a sudden wake up in my experience. I do a freshwater dip on certain corals that I cannot bayer dip and I have gotten a few cool serpent stars that way.

yup, that would be ph and salinity probs.

I stopped using cups as a measure with salts due to "minor adjustments" needed. I measure in grams and it pretty consistent.

edsbeaker said:
It's not a dumb thought at all!
I think you are right. My water goes directly from the water mixing container which is food safe, directly into the tank, without using buckets, but I wonder if something got into either the container or possibly the salt is contaminated. I just opened this container of salt. I think it's best to clean out the 20 gallon container and see what happens next time. I'm hoping that is it! Thanks

your not seeing "swirling" like when putting fresh into salt?

jason_mazzy · Jul 5, 2017

are you 100% sure there was no saline fluctuation?

you posted above me: disregard this post

Pugfishluv3 · Jul 5, 2017

Have you tried to test freshly mixed saltwater? It could be a bad batch. I'm racking my brain because that's weird.

edsbeaker · Jul 5, 2017

I didn't test as far as alkalinity, calcium or magnesium. Just temp, salinity and pH. I did clean out the 20 gallon mixing container, and the bottom and pumps were very coated with a crust of white residue. Considering that this container has only been used for 3 months, I would say it seems excessive for that time period. I was surprised. I thought that Reef Crystals was the worst which is why, this time around, I switched to Red Sea pro.