Two dead Mexican Turbo Snails and one dead burrowing crab

[IE Reefer]

Just recently I had to take out a dead burrowing crab from my display tank and didn’t think much of it. Now today when I came home I smelled a horrible stench that filled up the entire house, I went to go look at the tank, nothing wrong, (in my refugium I kept 3x Mex tubo snails to get rid of my hair algae problem) but when I went to go look in my refuge it stunk like I don’t know what and noticed that 2 out of my 3 snails were dead so I took them out and tree them away. Now getting to my question, should I or should I not siphon my sand bed because of the stench (if I may note that in my refuge there is little to no flow due to the design of the sump) or is there any way to get rid of it?

 

[Musovski]

how olds the tank? Nitrate levels? Anything there with them that would find them appetizing?

 

[IE Reefer]

how olds the tank? Nitrate levels? Anything there with them that would find them appetizing?

Tank turns 1 y/o in April, I'm about to start to test my water levels. I will send an update once I am done.

 

[Hermie]

it's possible that the same culprit is killing all of them and that the crab died first by chance, testing water parameters is a great idea to help figure it out

 

[IE Reefer]

it's possible that the same culprit is killing all of them and that the crab died first by chance, testing water parameters is a great idea to help figure it out

Also if I may note that I had two types of shrimp in the past 1x cleaner shrimp (tank 3 months old) and 1x tiger pistol shrimp (7 months old) and both died within a week

 

[IE Reefer]

it's possible that the same culprit is killing all of them and that the crab died first by chance, testing water parameters is a great idea to help figure it out

Waiting on the nitrate, but pH: 8.2 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0
Update: Nitrite: 10ppm

 

[IE Reefer]

how olds the tank? Nitrate levels? Anything there with them that would find them appetizing?

Waiting on the nitrate, but pH: 8.2 Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0
Update: Nitrite: 10ppm

 

[SakuraSky]

That is a major dead spot in your refugium, which can cause a lot of toxins to leach. Crushed coral is not the best for a refugium because of its pourus nature and ability to breed nitrates like crazy especially if there is no flow or movement. Crushed coral is meant to be siphoned regularly to help with this. I would suggest thinking about putting some live reef sand in your refugium at some point in time and get rid of the crushed coral. Its a big project but it'll be healthier in the long run. The little arthropods will come back. Red Sea test kits are pretty accurate imo, api is okay but you will not get accurate results. You will get results that are close. You definitely need to pick up a phos kit also, sera, salifert, are good ones. Shrimps and crabs are very sensitive to nitrates and everything else.

 

[IE Reefer]

That is a major dead spot in your refugium, which can cause a lot of toxins to leach. Crushed coral is not the best for a refugium because of its pourus nature and ability to breed nitrates like crazy especially if there is no flow or movement. Crushed coral is meant to be siphoned regularly to help with this. I would suggest thinking about putting some live reef sand in your refugium at some point in time and get rid of the crushed coral. Its a big project but it'll be healthier in the long run. The little arthropods will come back. Red Sea test kits are pretty accurate imo, api is okay but you will not get accurate results. You will get results that are close. You definitely need to pick up a phos kit also, sera, salifert, are good ones. Shrimps and crabs are very sensitive to nitrates and everything else.

Thank you so much for helping me out, I deeply appreciate it! Question, could I go bare bottom with my refuge? I see quite a handful go bare bottom in their display tank and I was wondering if it will be the same with refuges.

 

[Hermie]

From what I recall, that's super high for nitrite for a fully cycled tank. You should effectively have 0 ppm nitrite. But that nitrite level may not be the source of the deaths. High nitrite levels may be a symptom of the dead inverts which give off ammonia upon decomposition thus overloading your biological filtration. What is your salinity and have you checked it w/ more than one device?

Also you mentioned nitrite twice in your previous posts, did you mean you have 10ppm nitrate?

 

[IE Reefer]

From what I recall, that's super high for nitrite for a fully cycled tank. You should effectively have 0 ppm nitrite. But that nitrite level may not be the source of the deaths. High nitrite levels may be a symptom of the dead inverts which give off ammonia upon decomposition thus overloading your biological filtration. What is your salinity and have you checked it w/ more than one device?

Also you mentioned nitrite twice in your previous posts, did you mean you have 10ppm nitrate?

Yes, I'm sorry for that error. My salinity is 1.024ppm

 

[Greg P]

From your pic it looks black. That could be hydrogen sulfide.
Use your WC siphon assy to remove/toss the water from a sand cleaning. Do no more than 1/4-1/3 of the tank per week to keep the rest of the nitrifying bacteria.

 

[IE Reefer]

From your pic it looks black. That could be hydrogen sulfide.
Use your WC siphon assy to remove/toss the water from a sand cleaning. Do no more than 1/4-1/3 of the tank per week to keep the rest of the nitrifying bacteria.

After closer speculation, the black spot you see in my refuge is on my wall and not the actual sand. I did ask Sakura Sky this question and I will ask you the same, could I go bare bottom in my refuge?

 

[Tamberav]

Thank you so much for helping me out, I deeply appreciate it! Question, could I go bare bottom with my refuge? I see quite a handful go bare bottom in their display tank and I was wondering if it will be the same with refuges.

My fuge is bare bottom.. I assumed most people ran them that way. The bottom of it gets nasty if I don't vacuum it now and again.

You can't really see the bottom though but promise it is bare!

 

[SakuraSky]

Thank you so much for helping me out, I deeply appreciate it! Question, could I go bare bottom with my refuge? I see quite a handful go bare bottom in their display tank and I was wondering if it will be the same with refuges.

You could most definitely go bare bottom, a sand bed has benefits too, I would definitely read up on both and with that information decide what would be best. If you dont get a lot of water flow than maybe a bare bottom would be best. But that crushed coral definitely needs to go, you can vacuum it for now. Remove a little bit of the substrate at a time to prevent a system shock. Even though it may be polluted, there is still good bacteria in there

 

[vetteguy53081]

Check your nitrate and phosphate levels which may taking out the inverts.

Favorable:

Temp 76-79
ph 8.0-8.3
salinity 1.024-1.025
nitrate < .04
ammonia < .03
Phosphate < .04
Calcium 440