Emerald crab and coral banded dead!

[Lil' RegalReefster]

HI there. About a month ago I finished cycling my tank. A week after that I purchased my first two fish along with 5 hermits, a banded coral and peppermint shrimp, an emerald crab and 6 snails. Everything seemed to be doing exceptionally so a week after that I purchased a blue tang, foxface and purple tang. It has now been 2 weeks and everything is going very well and all the tank inhabitants look healthy. Five days ago my banded coral shrimp randomly lost an arm and I found him dead the next morning. I tested my water and my nitrites were almost untraceable and my nitrates were in between 5 and 10. I originally thought that it was the blue tang who did this since the coral banded seemed to be hanging around his territory, however, this morning I woke up and found my emerald crab dead. I just tested my water and my parameters are the exact same as before. Does anyone know what the cause might be? all the other inverts seem to be fine and I have seen a couple hermit molts floating around the tank as well as the peppermint shrimps molt. Are my trates too high or am I missing something? pls help!

Please note: the emerald crab was also hanging around the blue tangs territory and the banded coral shrimp molted a day or two before I died

 

[ScottR]

HI there. About a month ago I finished cycling my tank. A week after that I purchased my first two fish along with 5 hermits, a banded coral and peppermint shrimp, an emerald crab and 6 snails. Everything seemed to be doing exceptionally so a week after that I purchased a blue tang, foxface and purple tang. It has now been 2 weeks and everything is going very well and all the tank inhabitants look healthy. Five days ago my banded coral shrimp randomly lost an arm and I found him dead the next morning. I tested my water and my nitrites were almost untraceable and my nitrates were in between 5 and 10. I originally thought that it was the blue tang who did this since the coral banded seemed to be hanging around his territory, however, this morning I woke up and found my emerald crab dead. I just tested my water and my parameters are the exact same as before. Does anyone know what the cause might be? all the other inverts seem to be fine and I have seen a couple hermit molts floating around the tank as well as the peppermint shrimps molt. Are my trates too high or am I missing something? pls help!

Please note: the emerald crab was also hanging around the blue tangs territory and the banded coral shrimp molted a day or two before I died

Do you have any pics or more info about your tank?

 

[vetteguy53081]

a pic or two would help greatly to assure it death and not a molt.
A banded shrimp molting with have a clear skeleton whereas a dead one will have all the meat within the shell/housing

 

[40g Nano]

Nitrates shouldn’t be the problem. A foxface, blue tang, and purple might be a lot for a new tank.

 

[Lil' RegalReefster]

They were both definitely dead. They were fully intact with meat inside and everything. My tank is a reefer 450, 5 feet long 22 tall and 20 wide. Btw I know I can't house a blue tang in that forever. I'm planning on giving him to a friend eventually.

 

[Lil' RegalReefster]

Sorry. My phone's camera kinda sux

 

[LBReefer]

Can you list all your parameters?

Are you use rodi water? Any chance you have copper in the system?

 

[vetteguy53081]

It is also possible the shrimp never had a chance to harden before getting attacked by possibly rabbit fish, not saying rabbit did this

 

[Lil' RegalReefster]

I do use Ro/di. My ammonia is 0, nitrites 0.025 mg/L (almost untraceable), nitrates 5-10 mg/L, phosphate same as nitrite. Now that I think about it, there is a chance that it could be copper since I filter my water directly from a copper pipe. I will try and find a test kit to measure copper.

 

[40g Nano]

U could use prime to get rid of the copper and nitrite

 

[Lil' RegalReefster]

ok I will try