2.5 Months in, first casualty. No suspects.

BurlyWizard · May 12, 2021

As the title says, tank is still new, working through the uglies. Just lost the first critter, which was a Camelback Shrimp. Details of the tank are in my build thread, but here are the highlights:

IM 25g Lagoon - Invert heavy
- 3x Azure Damsel
- 3x Camelback Shrimp (now down to 2x)
- 2x Sexy Shrimp
- 2x Emerald Crabs
- 1x Skunk Cleaner

Everything has been in the tank for about 3 weeks. No changes to tank mates or tank equipment / settings. Tank was just making it out of a cyano balancing effect of dialing in lights/feeding, but after a few days of reduced lights, tank was looking much cleaner. Feedings are 1x-2x daily, but are not scientific as the tank is largely made of scavengers, and by morning, any remaining food has been consumed.

Parameters are below:
SG - 1.025
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrites - 0.05ppm
Nitrates - 2.5ppm
Temp - 79-81

As I said in the title, I have no idea what happened to this one. Aggression has been centralized to the damsels, which are always chasing each other around, but no aggression had been seen between shrimp or between the shrimp and fish. I got to see the shrimp (I assume) very shortly after it died and it was fully intact and didn't look picked on at all. I had not seen any recent molts and hadn't done a water change in the last several days. The only potential culprit I can see would be temp fluctuations. Nothing has changed in terms of heater settings, room temps, etc. However, over the last couple days had been seeing it range from around 79-81.

Temp Deep Dive: Honestly, I'm struggling a bit with temp in this tank. Room temps are ~73, which makes me think the heaters will need to keep the temp up. However, the temp keeps bumping up into the 80 range, and I would like it down at 78, so I keep turning down the heaters. They are currently set near 75, despite the high tank temps.

This makes me think either:
- One of the 2 Jager 50W heaters is malfunctioning and keeping the temps too high
- Something else with the tank is heating it and the heaters aren't even running. I don't think they are the lights, lights are a MARS Aqua 165W and are mounted 24" above the tank. The only other equipment in the tank are the 2 pumps (1 stock pump and 1 Tunze pump).

Or...it wasn't a temperature issue at all and I'm back to the drawing board on if it was just 'random' or whatnot.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

T-J · May 12, 2021

I doubt temp killed your shrimp. But in regards to temperature....

With a shallow lagoon style, and only 25g, it doesn't take much to heat it up. I'm guessing that the combination of your lights and pumps in the tank are heating the water up. A simple check would be to unplug your heaters and see what happens. Also, does your tank temp drop significantly at night when the lights go off?

Finally, don't ever trust the thermostat on one of those heaters. They're useless. Get an Inkbird controller to plug the heater into. If you get the wifi version, you get the bonus of being able to see your temperature trends on a graph.

Dkmoo · May 12, 2021

What do you feed?

BurlyWizard · May 12, 2021

Dkmoo said:
What do you feed?

Pieces of Hikari sinking algae tabs, PE pellets (2mm) and some marine flakes (since the damsels can't eat the PE pellets before they sink). All have been eating / scavenging well. The camelbacks have even recently eaten a Mermaid's Brush, which was annoying but I guess expected as I know they're not "reef safe".

Dkmoo · May 12, 2021

BurlyWizard said:
Pieces of Hikari sinking algae tabs, PE pellets (2mm) and some marine flakes (since the damsels can't eat the PE pellets before they sink). All have been eating / scavenging well. The camelbacks have even recently eaten a Mermaid's Brush, which was annoying but I guess expected as I know they're not "reef safe".

Camelback are carnivores so usually they dont like eating algae. They typically try to pick off meaty critters and stuff thats growing of from mature rocks. Maybe it's starving? Try feeding some meaty food like mysis shrimp

BurlyWizard · May 12, 2021

Dkmoo said:
Camelback are carnivores so usually they dont like eating algae. They typically try to pick off meaty critters and stuff thats growing of from mature rocks. Maybe it's starving? Try feeding some meaty food like mysis shrimp

Thanks, the PE pellets are mysis (but obviously in pellet form) and I do see the camelbacks eating those. Primarily the flakes are for the damsels, algea tabs are for the emeralds, and pellets are for shrimp. I can try to switch it up to true mysis if that would differ greatly from the PE mysis pellets.

Dkmoo · May 12, 2021

BurlyWizard said:
Thanks, the PE pellets are mysis (but obviously in pellet form) and I do see the camelbacks eating those. Primarily the flakes are for the damsels, algea tabs are for the emeralds, and pellets are for shrimp. I can try to switch it up to true mysis if that would differ greatly from the PE mysis pellets.

ok np don't sweat it - sometimes it just happens - esp if the rest of the 2 camelbacks stays healthy and happy. If you continue to lose livestock over the next X number of weeks then its a bigger sign that it's a system issue instead of an individual livestock issue.