my clean up crew is slowly dieing off

[atcone]

I purchased a clean up crew from saltwaterfish.com 50-100 gal everthing was fine. two of five peppermint shrimp dissapeared soon after intaduction to the tank. lost a handfull of hermit crabs too. just chauked it up to strees from shipping. But now after about three weeks my astrea snails are bitting the dust, saw one of my brittle stars chowing down on a emrald crab only can find one of four of them, and now one of my three brittle stars is MIA.( Iknow they can hide good, but Ihave seen all three every day somewhere in the tank.)All the test reveal 0 nitrate,nitite,ammonia. ph ok. salinity good and has been consistant. the only change was I went on a long weekend and left the lights off to prevent an overgroth of algea. I figured the crew would love low light levels (there all I have in there now).
Any Ideas? I got the tank used it's acylic. been up and running for about 2.5 months now. crew has been in about 3-4 weeks.
I read on this forum if copper was ever used in the tank it could be a problem. should I test for that?

 

[karajay]

Yes, test for copper.
Your clean-up crew is all you have in the tank? Have you been feeding them?

 

[atcone]

No I haven't but I have plenty of algea around. what else should I feed them?

 

[astroclown]

Got open powerheads or filters that could have sucked shrimps or the star fish in? Have other aggresive shrimps that could have maybe killed your peppermints? If you have blue legged hermits they tend to fight each other. When you get a whole bunch of clean up crew, some lives and some dont. But you'll never end up findind them, some hide underneath a rock or between cracks.

 

[atcone]

no power heads yet no other kind of shrimp.

 

[sebae0]

what is your salinity at, you said its consistent but didnt give the reading? sometimes a lower salinity will cause inverts to die off slowly, atleast thats what happened to me until i raised my specific gravity up to 1.025. and yes do test for copper.

 

[karajay]

If you find your shrimp, feed them something meaty.
I agree with the sg recommendation...keep it at 1.025 for happy inverts.

 

[doris]

Originally posted by atcone
Any Ideas? I got the tank used it's acylic. been up and running for about 2.5 months now. crew has been in about 3-4 weeks.
I read on this forum if copper was ever used in the tank it could be a problem. should I test for that?
I have read that an acrylic tank does not have an absorbable media for copper and that only the glass aquarium might have the potential for copper traces being absorbed in the silicone. If that is the case, why is copper testing being recommended and if that is not the case, where could possible copper traces be accumulating in an acrylic tank?
If this is sabotaging your thread atcone, then I'm sorry. However, I think this question is pertinent to your, and my, concerns. I personally believe that possible copper contamination in an acrylic tank should be one avenue that does not need to be persued in your process of elimination of potential causes of invertebrate deaths at this time.
On the other hand, if you feel you must test for copper then may I suggest to do what I do by paying the LFS to do a specific testing for $3.00 rather than paying $15.00 for a test kit that you'll probably only have to use once in your tank lifetime.

 

[atcone]

my salinity is 1.023 I'll raise it up. also I went ahead and got a copper test before I saw last post. and of corse Thats not it. thanks for the salinity tip. I also checked alk it was high 3.5 so I'm gong to recheck ph too thanks for the help.

 

[sebae0]

alk at 3.5 is not that high, good alk,cal and ph will not harm the inverts, i might think its the sg or just a tank maturation thing because your tank is relatively new.

 

[elfdoctors]

Originally posted by doris
I personally believe that possible copper contamination in an acrylic tank should be one avenue that does not need to be persued in your process of elimination of potential causes of invertebrate deaths at this time.
I respectfully disagree. It should be tested at least once.
Where does your water come from? Federal clean water standards allow for copper levels to be up to at least 10 times higher than what would be considered toxic for invertebrates (does your house have copper pipes?) If it is in your water supply it will slowly accumulate because of evaporation. If you have a RO unit you probably don't have to worry about this.
Also, never add water from a LFS into your tank as some stores use copper in their water all the time as a prophylactic treatment against ich.
Invertebrates do seem to prefer specific gravity closer to 1.025.

 

[doodle1800]

I doubt copper is the culprit - proper aclimating and not feeding your cleanup crew is my guess. Feed some mysis and brine shrimp once a week. Maybe throw in some flakes too. You'll see the cleanup crew go after all of it.
Are there any fish in the tank? Cleanup crew need to clean - right? Nothing to eat? (detrius)

 

[atcone]

No fish yet, but it's mostly my snail that are dieing I thought they eat algea, i got plenty of that.

 

[trippclark]

Mostly snails, huh? Me too. Often, like last night, I find three blue legs chowing down on a snail that fell off the glass. The crew that you bought (and that I bought) has blue-legs, right? I am convinced these guys are snail murderers. Of course, from what I read, lower SG causes snails to fall off glass more often, which puts them right in line for a blue leg attack! I have several blue legs in my tank now (8 - 10 at least), but I don't plan to add any more.