2 dead crabs in a week, causes???

[byrself]

i lost a sally lightfoot crab about a week ago, after it had just morphed it's shell (2 days after), i had it for about a month or so.
i bought an emerald crab 3 days before that, and i just got home and found him stiff as a board. any ideas?? i haven't lost any fish, i did a water change 3 days ago, using distilled water and matched the salinity @ 1.022. just added my power compacts 3 days ago. none of my fish seem bothered. my hermits are all okay too. i thought crabs were pretty hardy?? help !!! tank has been going for 5 months now. no real problems before. do regular water changes about 20% monthly and add minimal doses of calcium and reef complete vits and aminos. lost one damsel to other aggressive damsels, but no other loses. <img src="graemlins//confused.gif" border="0" alt="[confused]" />

 

[flydan]

Hey,
I would either get a good test kit, or take a water sample to my lfs if you have a good one, and test for as many things as you can. Different critters are more sensitive to different things. For example, my calcium got out of wack a few months ago, (way too high) and my fish and corals did just fine. Snails didn't seem to be bothered either, but I lost 4 shrimp, 4 emerald crabs and all my hermits. Anyway, I'd also recommend that you keep a journal of everything you add to your tank and see if there is a correlation between what you added and when things started to croak. It could be as simple as them OD'ing on your Reef Complete supplement. HTH
Dan'l

 

[byrself]

thanks man, that sounds like my problem. i just started adding reef complete and calcium about a week ago. i've been looking for a good test kit, so i'm gonna hold off on the supplements until i get one. any suggestions of a good all in one test kit? there's so many, and most don't have everything you need. what do you use??

 

[info_sponge]

This may sound stupid, but it says you "matched the salinity". did you add salt to the water you used to top off? Just asking... If so, your salinity may be enough to kill some inverts but not the fish. Only the water evaporates, not the salt, so all you need to do is add water... without salt. Again, Just checking...

 

[byrself]

no, i use only fresh water for topoffs. the salinity match was for my water change. i changed about 4 gallons of my 20 gallon tank.