Hemrit crabs dieing

[jeremy79]

yeah I was thinking about raising salinity, just worried if it would affect my coral. I really new to this....4 months! thanks for the advice though. Dont know about the voltage, dont really have anything to check it. would it been the reason why my scooter died also? I was thinking cuz of the frozen food ( I read somwhere the food has to thaw 1st, didnt do that)

[My2heartboys]

Originally Posted by jeremy79

yeah I was thinking about raising salinity, just worried if it would affect my coral. I really new to this....4 months! thanks for the advice though. Dont know about the voltage, dont really have anything to check it. would it been the reason why my scooter died also? I was thinking cuz of the frozen food ( I read somwhere the food has to thaw 1st, didnt do that)

__________________________________________________ ______________

Start raising it, but very slowly. I would take at least 2 weeks to get it up. As for stray voltage go to your LFS and get a grounding probe and install it. That would be one way to eliminate the possibility. As for the food, before you buy any fish ask your LFS what they are feeding. When asking be specific like what kind and what brand. And yes, I would certainly thaw any frozen food before feeding it. Better yet, if you can use flake or pellet food it won't add as many nitrates and phosphates to your tank--but for acclimation I would feed what ever the LFS feeds.

When I talk about acclimation, I don't neccesarily mean the immediate acclimation that we do to get the critter into the tank. I am speaking of the following weeks that it takes for them to become more acustomed to the system.

Anne

[Tangster]

Originally Posted by SuperScro

I had a bunch of hermits when I first started my tank. They all died except for a blue and a red. I had like eight total. It could be that your tank has just started, and there is a look of food source for the crabs.
Some people however have different opinions of keeping crabs, some say they are good for keeping the tank clean, yet others don't trust them period, like them, I have mostly snails now.

I'm with you on that one I keep as few hermits as possible I try to keep my hermit level at 1 or maybe 2 per 5 gallons of tank size I keep plenty of snails. I don't totally trust any type of crab in that they are opportunistic feeders and they will sometimes eat whats at Claw's reach..

[JetEngineMech]

Originally Posted by Tangster

I'm with you on that one I keep as few hermits as possible I try to keep my hermit level at 1 or maybe 2 per 5 gallons of tank size I keep plenty of snails. I don't totally trust any type of crab in that they are opportunistic feeders and they will sometimes eat whats at Claw's reach..

Ahh, yeah I gotcha. I had one die and two others were "disposing of the body." I always wondered if the crab died and they were cleaning it up or if they killed it.

[jeremy79]

Well just a little update w/ the crabs. LOL. So I moved them myself. One turned around, hasnt moved again after that. The other one moved an inch, but then walked back to the new spot I put it. Also hasnt moved again since. Agh. But they alive still!

[SuperScro]

My hermits were also very inactive when I first got them. My tank was new. i also believe my salt was at 1.025.
I think the crabs will kill each other if they need their shell or are just starving. I saw a blue leg hermit cleaning out a red leg hermits shell, eating hte dead hermit and taking the shell. I don't trust them. I had a hitchiker crab in the tank also, but he went after the snails mostly, or what I noticed. However I crushed him with a rock so It might not have been him.

[njdevilsfan]

i would try to add a ton of carbon to your tank
im wondering if somehow something bad got in your tank
if you ran a lot of carbon for a few days i think it might help
just my 2 cents

[djnzlab1]

HI,
You need to take a water sample to your LPS and have nitrite, nitrate, NH3, your CA, KH checked and maybe phos.
With any new system the water is constantly sliding around,
Inverts are very sensative to heavy metals, things like copper. Many water supplies have copper pipes even Di water stores.
Crabs are very sensative to drastic changes in water, if you add any water that has a diffeence in spec grav or PH/KH they will hide for days.
If you water is off Crabs die before fish.
Sorry better let your tank coast a bit more and recheck the water before adding more animals they can't handle stress or shock very well.Take it slow you don't want to waste your money on critters that die.
Doug
I doubt that this has occured but if any item in the tank has ever been in any type of soap it will kill things slowly sometimes we want to wipe off that salt on the tank or cover and if you spray any type of cleaner one tiny drop hits the water. DOA I had a friend who cleaned his tank and tried to scrape the salt off with a cleaning pad, and didn't know that it was impregnated with a type of soap he had to scrap the tank it was contaminated and could't be rinsed enough to make it safe.

[djnzlab1]

HI,
I noted that you mentioned you lost a scooter bleemy, they need lots of those little critters that live in the sand, they don't eat flake or frozen very well so he may hav starved to death. I wouldn't try a scooter without a healthy reforgium loaded with critters .
saltwater I am finding out isn't very forgiving start small and let it run for a few months then only add one thing at a time watch for problems.
I had way to many animals and they just started having all kinds of problems cause the water was going bad. Now I just let it coast and keep an eye on KH and CA/ mg and everyone is looking great and growing.
Doug

[jeremy79]

I was thinking about getting sand to mix w/ my crushed coral. Would it be disasterous if I got some live sand to mix with it. I was gonna just pour it into my tank and mix it with whats left of my livestock. I dont ever see and pods around so maybe that will grow some?