Maokin
Active Member
Sorry in advance for how long this is.
I recently decided to add to my clean up crew. Before the latest edition, I had 5 red and blue hermit crabs 2-3 Nassarius and 2 clowns. Had all of these in my red sea reefer 250 for about 2 months now in a 3-month-old tank. Everything was going good so I thought I would add a little more to my cleanup crew as I recently had some purple hair algae growing. Went to my lfs and picked up 2 emerald crabs 3 red-banded trochus snails 1 Nassarius snail and 1 fire shrimp. I took them all home floated them all for at least 15 minutes then dripped for 15 minutes in batches based on their bags. I saved the fire shrimp for last as they said they were sensitive at the store. The shrimp seemed fine during dripping and during transfer, he didn't want to get into the net so he was darting around the bowl he was in. But I did get him into the tank with the net eventually after around a minute or two. This was around 5pm or so and all seemed well for everything I purchased settling into their new home. The shrimp was stuck in a corning but got him out the corning and into the rockwork to hide. In the morning I found him the rockwork but he hard to see. After he didn't come out for a while I searched for him again and it looked like he was molting. So later in the day I check for him and found him floating in the corning dead half molted.
After a day of mourning decided to head back to the lfs to get my water tested to see if anything was off and possibly get another shrimp as they have a 48-hour policy. All parameters they tested seem to check out fine. 7-8dkh calcium 400, nitrate 0 and can't remember the rest. But they said my salinity was 1.027sg or 37ppm. Now I have been struggling with my salinity as my apex salinity probe has been all over the place per my apex probe. However, I am just finding the probe cannot be trusted. I ended up getting a Hanna digital salinity probe to complement my led refractometer. Now I have 3 different ways to measure my salinity. Before bringing my water in my apex which has been calibrated 3 times was reading around 33.5 ppm Hanna checker 33.2ppm and refractometer 34ppm. Given I have 3 points of measurement I would say my lfs must have been far off with their measurement. Perhaps I contained the water on the way somehow? I have calibrated my refractometer and Hanna check each a handfull of times too. So I would find it hard to believe that 3 different units of measurement were all off by so much.
But anyways given everything checked out on their end they sent me home with another fire shrimp for free. Taking home the second shrimp I did the same 15 minutes of floating and 15 minutes of dripping. This time using my hand to transfer from the bowl to the tank. It worked out great. He grabbed my finger and didn't want to let go once in the tank. He was also added after lights out and was careful not to turn any lights on in the room till the next day. Next day he was hiding under a rock upside down so tried to target feed him some mysis shrimp. It seemed as if he got some but it was hard to tell. By afternoon he came out from hiding and I assumed he was getting more comfortable in the tank. However, by late afternoon it seemed he wasn't doing well. Sort of floating around barely hanging on. By 9pm when I returned home he was upside down with some sand on him.
At this point all my other additions we seeming fine. All the cuc added came from a connected set of display tanks at the lfs. I believe they said they keep at 1.023 for inverts. Not wanting to kill another shrimp I am giving a break for right now and continuing to test and monitor things. I have ordered a Triton ICP test as I run Triton method with daily 3% water changes.
After the second death, I decided to test all parameters again to see if anything could be found here are my results.
Salinity 34ppm
nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 9
alk: 9.1
Phosphate: .01
Calcium: 400
Mag: 1200
Ammonia: 0
pH: 7.9-8.1
The last thing I noticed was I picked up my first Shrimp on Sunday and there seemed to be 5-6 different shrimp when I was there a few hours before closing. They are closed Monday and I returned Tuesday night to get my second shrimp it seemed i got the last one. It seemed strange that all the shrimp had sold on one day during the middle of the week.
Any advice of what I could have done differently?
Could the shrimp be already on their last leg when I got them?
I recently decided to add to my clean up crew. Before the latest edition, I had 5 red and blue hermit crabs 2-3 Nassarius and 2 clowns. Had all of these in my red sea reefer 250 for about 2 months now in a 3-month-old tank. Everything was going good so I thought I would add a little more to my cleanup crew as I recently had some purple hair algae growing. Went to my lfs and picked up 2 emerald crabs 3 red-banded trochus snails 1 Nassarius snail and 1 fire shrimp. I took them all home floated them all for at least 15 minutes then dripped for 15 minutes in batches based on their bags. I saved the fire shrimp for last as they said they were sensitive at the store. The shrimp seemed fine during dripping and during transfer, he didn't want to get into the net so he was darting around the bowl he was in. But I did get him into the tank with the net eventually after around a minute or two. This was around 5pm or so and all seemed well for everything I purchased settling into their new home. The shrimp was stuck in a corning but got him out the corning and into the rockwork to hide. In the morning I found him the rockwork but he hard to see. After he didn't come out for a while I searched for him again and it looked like he was molting. So later in the day I check for him and found him floating in the corning dead half molted.
After a day of mourning decided to head back to the lfs to get my water tested to see if anything was off and possibly get another shrimp as they have a 48-hour policy. All parameters they tested seem to check out fine. 7-8dkh calcium 400, nitrate 0 and can't remember the rest. But they said my salinity was 1.027sg or 37ppm. Now I have been struggling with my salinity as my apex salinity probe has been all over the place per my apex probe. However, I am just finding the probe cannot be trusted. I ended up getting a Hanna digital salinity probe to complement my led refractometer. Now I have 3 different ways to measure my salinity. Before bringing my water in my apex which has been calibrated 3 times was reading around 33.5 ppm Hanna checker 33.2ppm and refractometer 34ppm. Given I have 3 points of measurement I would say my lfs must have been far off with their measurement. Perhaps I contained the water on the way somehow? I have calibrated my refractometer and Hanna check each a handfull of times too. So I would find it hard to believe that 3 different units of measurement were all off by so much.
But anyways given everything checked out on their end they sent me home with another fire shrimp for free. Taking home the second shrimp I did the same 15 minutes of floating and 15 minutes of dripping. This time using my hand to transfer from the bowl to the tank. It worked out great. He grabbed my finger and didn't want to let go once in the tank. He was also added after lights out and was careful not to turn any lights on in the room till the next day. Next day he was hiding under a rock upside down so tried to target feed him some mysis shrimp. It seemed as if he got some but it was hard to tell. By afternoon he came out from hiding and I assumed he was getting more comfortable in the tank. However, by late afternoon it seemed he wasn't doing well. Sort of floating around barely hanging on. By 9pm when I returned home he was upside down with some sand on him.
At this point all my other additions we seeming fine. All the cuc added came from a connected set of display tanks at the lfs. I believe they said they keep at 1.023 for inverts. Not wanting to kill another shrimp I am giving a break for right now and continuing to test and monitor things. I have ordered a Triton ICP test as I run Triton method with daily 3% water changes.
After the second death, I decided to test all parameters again to see if anything could be found here are my results.
Salinity 34ppm
nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 9
alk: 9.1
Phosphate: .01
Calcium: 400
Mag: 1200
Ammonia: 0
pH: 7.9-8.1
The last thing I noticed was I picked up my first Shrimp on Sunday and there seemed to be 5-6 different shrimp when I was there a few hours before closing. They are closed Monday and I returned Tuesday night to get my second shrimp it seemed i got the last one. It seemed strange that all the shrimp had sold on one day during the middle of the week.
Any advice of what I could have done differently?
Could the shrimp be already on their last leg when I got them?
