Emerald crab help.

[orangehic]

hello, As previously stated in my other posts i am relatively new to saltwater keeping, Ive had my tank setup for just over a couple months at this point, its a 37 gal consisting of 30lbs sand aprox 8lbs live rock, one heater a nano skimmer 160gph powerhead a 40gal power filter and a marineland c220 canister filter that i added about 3 weeks ago runnng coal, xport-bio and rings that will soon fully take the place of the power filter so i figure water to only be around 33gal, i have 5 various hermits , various sand loving snails (couldnt tell you how many at this point since despite the fact that they have more shells then they could hope for sitting on the bottom of the tank my hermits seems to keep killing the snails off for their shells) one snowflake eel and an emerald crap, everything seems to be going ok at this point did have 3 devils that i had put into the tank shortly after setup but they all died off in a few short weeks, i figure prolly from the tank cycling. ive been doing regular twice weekly water changes of 10 - 25% just to help things along and keep my levels at bay. currently my levels sit around 1.023-24salt, 8.3ph .25ppm ammonia .25ppm nitrite and 5ppm nitrate. for about a week now ive been watching a steady climb in my nitrate levels witch i would assume to be due to the canister filter finishing its cycle. as far as the water i use i mix my own however i use only distilled water and use instant ocean reef crystals and about 1ml seachem prime witch i mix in a 5gal bucket then add a cir fan, the lid and let it sit for 24 to 48 hrs befor adding it to my tank i always check my levels in the new water to make sure what im adding isnt going to hurt my critters. what worries me at this point is that my emerald crab has been stumbling around on its back for about 4days now and has very little use of her hind legs shes fairly active and still eats (other then the alge that grow from the rocks and sand i feed with pellets, the seaweed select garlic and green algae strips witch she seems to like and will aslo hand feed her some chopped krill thats left over after feeding my eel) now last night i did find that my nitrate had spiked to about 40ppm again im blaming the canister cycle for that all other levels have stayed about the same so i did a 25% change and brought the levels down to about 20ppm tonight i plan on doing another 25% change after i get home from work witch i figure should help out alot. but whats the deal with my emerald crab at first i thought maybe she was just molting but again this is going on the fourth day now and im starting to get worried. if anyone has any info they could share maybe im worrying for no reason or any helpful advise all are welcome. thanks ps all other critters seem to be acting normal

 

[peasofme]

it's not normal. i heard canister filters are bad.

 

[thegrun]

Your cycle is not complete; you should not have ANY livestock in the tank. Everything in the tank is suffering from ammonia poisoning (thus the death of your fish). The invertebrates are typically the most susceptible, but all your livestock should be removed until the cycle is complete. At this point with your tank the only thing you should be concerned with is maintaining a steady salinity level and monitoring your ammonia and nitrite levels.