Got clean-up crew yesterday

[rhomer]

I received my clean-up crew yesterday. I had a pretty lowsy day. I ordered some snails, blue legs, red legs, a salley, 2 emeralds, a cleaner, a camel back, and a serpent star.
The serpent star was way too big. Most serpents I have looked at are about 4-6in in diameter. this one was 12-18 inches in diameter. The blue legs are very very small, and the red legs are very big. The snails were normal turbos. The emeralds are about an inch across, and the salley was about 3 inches across. The cleaner shrimp is about 1-2 inches, and the camel back is the same size.
I had 2 red legs out of their shells dead. The camel back I don't think was alive when he arrived. The cleaner shrimp was highly stessed, and didn't survive the 2 hour drip. The serpent star gave it his all, but didn't make it through the night. The crabs were eating on him in the morning. I also ordered a lobster, but for some reason wasn't shipped. So far everything else appears healthy. The emeralds are more active than I've ever seen emeralds. The turbos havn't moved, the blue legs havn't moved, but the red legs have covered the entire tank, and the salley appears healthy.
My wife hates to lose anything, and is very sad about losing the serpent star. She had already given it a name. I was already planning on trying to find a home for him, because he was way too large for my tank. I went above and beyond the instructions for acclimation. I have a system that was perfect up to this. These are the first losses I've had in a long time.
I ran a test the night before the arrival, and ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, nitrate is 5-10, ph is 8.2, sg 1.022, temp 78. I had a neon goby in there, 65 lbs of ls, 55 lbs of lr., a ten gallon wet/dry. I'm guessing the cold weather affected the livestock.

 

[burtonjr]

Rhomer,
I had more favorable results, but the scarlet hermits I got have moved very little or died. I can only find 3 out of the 30 I ordered. Same with the peppermints. I ordered 5, can only find one now. Most of the stuff I got seemed to be rather small, especially the shrimps. My problem in the past has been keeping hermits...period. I took about a gallon of my water to my LFS and she dropped a few hermits in and left them for several days...no problems...just my luck. I don't understand why they die in my setup. Water checks out good...system is three years old...no predators (I find the bodies stuck to the filter intake). Any ideas?

 

[rhomer]

I had this same thing happen to my 20 a long time ago. It was after my anenome died. I'm guessing that it released a toxin into the sand, and as soon as my crabs would stir up the sand bed that was all she wrote. Any crabs on the rock would survive for a while until they ventured down to the sand.

 

[rmd8110]

the hermits i ordered from here were also very tiny. they sent me 2 free shrimp that were smaller than the brine shrimp i use for feeding! lol the one that was the biggest of the 2 (which was still just about microscopic) i found dead the next morning. and i did acclimation for SEVERAL hours. i'm sure the little tiny clear one didn't make it either but i never found him. my main complaint is that they don't put warnings about things that even if they are healthy, aren't going to make it long....like HORSESHOE CRABS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[rhomer]

One of the first things I put in my first tank was a horseshoe crab, died the next day. I later found out that they need very cool water, and are very clumsy in reef tanks.

 

[rhomer]

You should have seen there scarlet serpent star. This thing was huge. I mean from tip to tip was over 12 inches. The center was the size of a racket ball. I feel horrible about losing him though. There was nothing I could do. I was expecting 4-6 inches. The page claims medium size and they reach 8-10 inches. I do the math and expect a 4-6 inch serpent star.
This would have been large in any size tank. The legs were as thick as a ball point pen. I wish he had made it a little longer so I could get him to a lfs. If I lived near an ocean I would have release him, no question.

 

[pegboy]

I just got my package from SWF.com and i am pretty happy with it. It came 2 days after i ordered,and i lost only one peppermint shrimp ou of the entire order of about 25 different things (crabs, shrimp, and snails) . I got 5 shrimp and all of them looked dead when i put them in. But, the next night all but one were happily moving around. Also, i noticed everything in the week that i have gotten them has molted. I have bunch of little hermit crab and shrimp exoskeltons in the tank, but it looks like most are still alive and kicking, switching shells, and cleaning like crazy.

 

[rhomer]

It's just going down hill, lost an emerald crab, none of the blue legs are coming out yet, and it appears that the cucumber, and conch are headed to the big toilet in the sky.

 

[rhomer]

What should I do?? With everything dying my ammonia levels are starting to rise. I remove the items as soon as they appear dead. How do I keep this from crashing??
I'm planning on removing all the snails, and blue legs and placing them in another tank. Is this a good Idea, or will I jepordize the other tank?

 

[k.lee]

Originally posted by rhomer:
<strong>What should I do?? With everything dying my ammonia levels are starting to rise. I remove the items as soon as they appear dead. How do I keep this from crashing??
I'm planning on removing all the snails, and blue legs and placing them in another tank. Is this a good Idea, or will I jepordize the other tank?</strong><hr></blockquote>
if your mmonia levels are rising froma few hermits, you need to check your bio-load, and what filtration you have Did you cycle your tank? Do you have a wet-dry filter, and/or a goodd protein skimmer?
Hope not to be a sore thumb, but, I'd like one day to oprder some stuff.

 

[yammer]

Are you sure your hermits are dead. When I got my cleanup crew with about 40 reds and 10 blues, I saw several of what I thought were "corpses" the next morning, but sure enough after doing a bit more watching and counting it turns out that they were just molts. In that order, I also had a red serpent, a blue linkia, a cleaner shrimp, and a brown cucumber. All except the linkia are doing well. The red serpent did have a problem early on with the loss of one of its legs, but that is currently growing back.
Overall now, I would characterize the blue-leg hermits as the 'most' active. The reds are doing fine but seem to spend more time resting on average.
Sorry to hear about your losses. I was very depressing for me when I lost the linkia.