2 questions for the wise

[kwj]

First, is joe's juice safe to use around mantis shrimp?

The second requires some info:

Last night, my heater broke mysteriously; the wires arced. Some stuff has died and everything in the tank looks rough. I did a 25%-ish water change. I have a cardinal and a haptosquilla stoliura in a 10 gallon aquarium. They both seem to be fine. The snails are not doing so hot.

Is there anything other than water changes that I should do to prevent further losses?

Just thought I would see if anyone has had any similar experiences. These certainly are tough little bastards; the arcing wires were only about 4 inces from his cave entrance, and he just sat there and watched. Perhaps it was just his plan to annhilate his entire neighborhood. He hasn't shown signs of toughness yet, but maybe he is more devious and evil than I suspected.

 

[Gonodactylus]

I've had several heaters broken by stomatopods before I started putting guards around them. Actually, now we keep the entire lab at 77 F and don't use heaters any more. The biggest problem with an arcing broken filiment, aside from the chance of shock, is that copper (and other metals depending on the type of heating element) are released into the tank. This is usually fatal to stomatopods and other invertebrates that have a copper based blood pigment.

The first thing I would do is a 100% (or as near complete) water change as possible. ALso, if there is any evidence of pieces of the burned element, I would remove them and the sand in that area. I would then get a sensitive copper test kit and monitor the tank closely for at least a couple of weeks.

Sorry for the grim warning, but I've been there and done that too many times.

Roy

 

[Thurge]

Joe's Juice should be fine. I used it on a couple of occasions to try and rid myself of Aptasia in my mantis tank, but they kept comming back. I finally resorted to buying a bunch of peppermint shrimp when it was molting. I figured that he would smash one or two at a time, but not kill them all before they had done their job. In the end they found that they were safe behind the skimmer where there wasn't enough room for the mantis to get at them.