death by poor acclimation ?

dmurphy

dmurphy

Member
So at what point would you say that you have safely acclimated live stock to your tank ? ... A week, a month ? I starting losing some snails and a brittle star(which fell apart.. most disturbing) last week after 3-4 weeks of looking good in my tank. The water levels look great but the LFS thinks they weren't acclimated properly. That sounded like a long time to me to start showing the wear and tear of poor acclimation. what do you all think ?
DateTimeTempSalinitypHAmmoniaNitriteNitrateAlkalinity
10/17/0218:45781.0258.300103.2
 
nacl-h2o

nacl-h2o

Active Member
That doesn't sound right to me either. I would say 2 or 3 days maybe a week at the outside and it may still be poor acclimation, but not 3 or 4 weeks. Did you do a water change or dump topoff in in that time frame? Both stars and snails are sinsitive to sudden salinity changes and that could have caused something like that.
 
dmurphy

dmurphy

Member
I haven't done a water change yet as the tank is just 2 months old and all my levels look good. I have been doing top offs due to the evaporation. Initially with conditioned tap water but now I only use what I have run through my RO/DI. Some folks on this board thought there might not have been enough algea to support all the snails being a young tank and all... But all the hermits seem to be doing well. no clue here!
 
nacl-h2o

nacl-h2o

Active Member
If they died from lack of food at least one or two would usually live out of the small available food, but that could be a problem. Is there any algae in the tank? What are your nitrates at?
 
dmurphy

dmurphy

Member
There was a lot of algea .. but the cleanup crew seemed to eat it all up pretty quick.. Now with much smaller population there is much more algea. My nitrates are a little under 10 currently. They have never gone over 10 since the tank cycled. Pretty confused! I can't imagine what else could have caused it
 
fshhub

fshhub

Active Member
how is the rest of your test results?
salinity, ammonia, nitrites, and PH
also how old is the tank, and what type of stars and snails are we talking about?
 
dmurphy

dmurphy

Member
The tank is 2 months old. The stars were serpent stars and the snails were a mix of 10 Turbo and 20 margarita.
Here are the stats
Date Time Temp Salinity pH Ammonia Nitrite Nitrate Alkalinity
10/17/02 18:45 78 1.025 8.3 0 0 10 3.2
 
fshhub

fshhub

Active Member
so, the tank is now 2 months old?
and these critters died after 3-4 weeks,
YOur water seems fine, but did it cycle, or had it cycled completely before adding these things to your tank, by my estimation, it sounds like you put them in when the tank was approximately a month old, stars, cannot survive a cycle, teh snails are alittle more hearty. Water conditions need to be excellent and stable as well as mature for stars, JMO.
 
dmurphy

dmurphy

Member
Yes the tank is 2 months old .. It took about 3 weeks to cycle
These were the measurements when I put them in.
date Temp Salinity PH Ammonia Nitrite Nitrate
9/23/02761.02358.20010
Alk = 2.8
 
wamp

wamp

Active Member
Whater chemistry sounds fine however, since you started the tank with tap water which can contian copper and other metals I would suspect that they may be causing some problems.
Just a theroy though. DO you have any fish in the tnak and if so, how are they doing?
 
dmurphy

dmurphy

Member
about 4 days ago I added the first fish. 2 three-stripe damsels and then on Friday I added a tomato clown. So far they all look in excellent health... active, eating etc. But previously everything else looked happy only 4 days in too. I guess only time will tell.
 
wamp

wamp

Active Member
I would watch the fish closely. If they seem to do fine, I would suspect copper or some other metal in the tank. Fish are not affecte by copper acepet in VERY high levels.
 
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