HELP! How to save a dying coral banded shrimp and serpent star!!!!

flydiver

New Member
I did a major tank (55 gal) clean yesterday that took quite a long time because I hadn't done it in a long time (don't ask). It was in pretty bad shape, to say the least. After removing all my live rock to siphon clean the sand, I took about 25% of the water out (removal of the live rock made the water go down about 20%). I also took all livestock out during this time. I removed and replaced old filter cartridges. Filling the tank back up and adjusting the water to it's correct levels, I reintroduced everybody. One out of two of my blood fire shrimp died within 2 hours. I turned the lights off and went to bed... the next morning, my coral banded shrimp and my serpent star look in VERY bad shape. The coral banded shrimp is barely breathing and barely moving. My serpent star is sluggish, but alive. The situation is getting worse! Someone please tell me what to do to save them if I can- I love them! My serpent star is 14 years old and I don't want to lose him...
I shut every appliance off during cleaning and the temperature went down pretty quick while cleaning too. I also admit that I introduced them way too fast, which I feel really bad about. I didn't wait for the water temperature to rise before putting them in because I knew they needed o2 fast (I don't have an alternate tank to put them into while cleaning of this degree).
SG is a hair above 1.024
pH is 7.8 <- I agree that that is low, but I don't want to change anything now because I don't want to shock/stress them out anymore than they already are... unless I should do it anyway??
Temperature is temperature is around 79F
All other levels are fine...
My other fish and inverts are fine! I have a 14 year old gold-banded maroon clown, blue spotted watchman goby of the same age, pencil urchin, trumpet coral, hammerhead polyps, and my other blood fire shrimp... they're all doing fine it seems.
Any advice would be helpful! Thank you!
-FlyDiver
 

jay0705

Well-Known Member
Way too much cleaning. You prob turned up all kinds of nasty things. Even if it had been awhile u should just increased the water changes. Maybe weekly for about a month
 

jay0705

Well-Known Member
Test your water. You may wanted to do a small water change 5-8gallons. Make sure your salt mix is well aerated. You don't want to mix it and pour it rt in.
 
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