Ideas

[james-lee]

Found my emerald crab dead last night suddenly and now I find my red peppermint shrimp just swimming around and laying on the bottom. I am sure its dying but what would cause this. Only issue I had was stupid salinity dropping but I fixed that. Everything else is in check. Man this is bumming me out I cant seem to get it right with this new tank. I may have to go back to small lol!

 

[james-lee]

BTW he is still breathing (moving those paddly like things under its tail), but his appendages are twitching. Kinda looks creepy. :ahhhhh:

 

[james-lee]

I think I may have figuered it out. Apparently (as I am still learning) you cant raise salinity too quickly. Well salinity was 1.022 yesterday. Had a batch of saltwater already made. Added the whole gallon in. Well salinity rose to 1.025 in a few hours. Perhaps the hypo salinity coupled with the rapid rise to normal just stressed it out and it finally kicked the bucket this morning? BTW its laying there motionless starring at me right now.... I am gonna go fish him out and flush him down the toilet.

 

[Drew Shark]

Just set it in a Tupper Ware container full of tank water to see if something will happen. If it continues to not move then flush, it in about two hours. The only other thing I can think of is copper some how got in this system.

 

[james-lee]

Nah he is dead lol. This is my thinking. I have my system plumbed in to where my overflow box is. I have these holes that are drilled on the front and sides of the overflow box to allow the return water to go out to the DT. Well when I poured the new saltwater (which is conecntrated (I know Im a dumb ***)) it will be directly pumped out of those holes to the rock work where the shrimp tends to stay. I am thinking he got hit with a pretty concentrated amount of saltwater and the immediate area turned hypersalinic and thus screwed up his breathing mechanism and then he died. Cause this all happened withing 5 - 10 minutes of me pouring in the salt water from the sump side return pump chamber. Man what a bummer wish i could have the foresight to see these things prior to doing them so stuff like this doesnt happen. Oh well i guess live and learn and for me I have to have the bad hings happen first before I learn lol! :frusty: Thanks for your help though! :high5: