Cant keep crabs alive

[mr. limpid]

I have a 20gal long and every type of crab I put in this tank dies. Tank pram. salinity 1.025; ammonia 0; nitrates 0 and calcium 460, these are the only test I do. Tank mates hammer; (6) plate corals (they keep growing new ones); zoos; xenia and (1) yellow tail damsel. I do water changes 2gal. every two weeks, vaporization is 8 cups a day, I don't use a lid, add RO/D water 4 cups (I dilute it with tank water slowly) in the morning and 4 cups in the evening. Any ideas what I need to do to keep the alive, this tank original was just crabs then started adding corals.

 

[meowzer]

How do you acclimate them? How long before they die? What is your tank temp?

 

[mr. limpid]

I float the add little tank water for two hours.
about a month
78deg.

 

[mr. limpid]

also have about 30lbs of live rock and tank has been up and runing for about 10 years.

 

[peasofme]

crabs and shrimp will kill eachother. it could also be the damsel. crabs dont live long anyways. average is 6 months. some die overnight due to stress. i don't believe in acclimation personally. the hardiest crabs are the blue leg hermits. i had two maroon xanthid crabs that lived for years. they were really cool and lived through everything. i wish i could find more of those. one day one of them ripped the others legs off. he eventually died. and one day the other died. they lived together for years though.

 

[mr. limpid]

well my last attempt was keep a single emerald crab, he was gone most of the time saw him 3 times since I added him. Never saw the damsel pay any attention to him, even when I gave him a piece of squid.

 

[peasofme]

yea, the thing is, u mite never see aggression but all it takes is for your damsel to one day feel like biting ur crab for whatever reason and one bite = death. also crabs/shrimp love to molt when they enter a new home and molting sometimes leads to death for inverts. i've heard that the greener an emerald is, the healthier it is. so the paler/whiter ones are unhealthy i guess.

 

[mr. limpid]

thanks good to know the next time I pick out an emerald. still don't understand about the hermits, the damsel is a new guy to the tank and I couldn't keep them alive before either.

 

[mr. limpid]

Any one have a idea why my crabs keep dying, it can be that hermits only live for 6 months. You spend $100 on a reef package every 6 months not worth it to me. Looking for some ideas is my tank missing some mineral or are my corals secreting something that is killing my crabs?

 

[dmanatee]

do you add iodine to the water from time to time? i knowthat helps crustations with molting.

 

[mr. limpid]

no because i don't have a test kit for that. I guess I need to get one.