salajander
New member
Over the last 6 weeks or so I've had a series of disappearances among my clean-up crew inverts.
I understand that the smaller inverts in a CUC (hermits and snails) tend to be pretty fungible, what with hermits fighting over shells and occasionally ambushing a snail. However, the disappearances have been of the larger livestock, which is a bit worrying.
1)
We started out with 4 peppermint shrimp back in March. They did great for ~4 months until around six weeks back, when one of them disappeared. Then, about 2 weeks back, another disappeared. No sign of bodies or anything, just disappeared. Only saw aggression between the peppermints once. Other than that they always tended to hang out together.
I wonder if it's murdering rivals after two of them paired up?
When I first had them, they were molting semi-regularly, but that's stopped lately as well.
2)
Also had 2 emerald crabs in the tank. Though they hide well, I always saw them both looking over the course of a day or two. First one disappeared a month or so after, then the other had its shell turn white(?) but hung around for a few more months, then went missing a few weeks back. There's definitely plenty of algae around the tank for them, but maybe they weren't able to eat the GHA?
3)
And we also had two porcelain crabs in the tank, added in April, about a month after the first CUC. They both seemed to be doing fine, but (again) first one disappeared, then another.
Throughout all this the rest of the CUC has been mostly fine (it's hard to count the hermits and snails, really), and the two scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp have been doing great.
Also the fish in the tank seem fine: 1 tailspot blenny and 3 small spotted cardinalfish.
I haven't seen any obvious signs of a predator (e.g. a hitchhiking mantis). There's a small infestation of bristleworms, but as far as I understand those will only eat slime/detritus.
The tank is a 55g display with a small sump, GFO reactor, skimmer, and refugium underneath. It's been running since Feb, cycled since March.
SG has been steady around 1.026, temp runs around 80-81. I tend to do weekly 5g changes.
NO3 was around 10-12 for the first few months, but it's been steadily declining, was down around 4ppm last I checked.
PO4 has been very low.
KH was steady-ish (7-8.4) for a long time, but something was sucking it up a bit more starting around 2 months back, and I've seen it as low as 5.4. Same for Ca (375-435 for a long time, down around 350 lately).
Does anyone have any hints or suggestions?
I understand that the smaller inverts in a CUC (hermits and snails) tend to be pretty fungible, what with hermits fighting over shells and occasionally ambushing a snail. However, the disappearances have been of the larger livestock, which is a bit worrying.
1)
We started out with 4 peppermint shrimp back in March. They did great for ~4 months until around six weeks back, when one of them disappeared. Then, about 2 weeks back, another disappeared. No sign of bodies or anything, just disappeared. Only saw aggression between the peppermints once. Other than that they always tended to hang out together.
I wonder if it's murdering rivals after two of them paired up?
When I first had them, they were molting semi-regularly, but that's stopped lately as well.
2)
Also had 2 emerald crabs in the tank. Though they hide well, I always saw them both looking over the course of a day or two. First one disappeared a month or so after, then the other had its shell turn white(?) but hung around for a few more months, then went missing a few weeks back. There's definitely plenty of algae around the tank for them, but maybe they weren't able to eat the GHA?
3)
And we also had two porcelain crabs in the tank, added in April, about a month after the first CUC. They both seemed to be doing fine, but (again) first one disappeared, then another.
Throughout all this the rest of the CUC has been mostly fine (it's hard to count the hermits and snails, really), and the two scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp have been doing great.
Also the fish in the tank seem fine: 1 tailspot blenny and 3 small spotted cardinalfish.
I haven't seen any obvious signs of a predator (e.g. a hitchhiking mantis). There's a small infestation of bristleworms, but as far as I understand those will only eat slime/detritus.
The tank is a 55g display with a small sump, GFO reactor, skimmer, and refugium underneath. It's been running since Feb, cycled since March.
SG has been steady around 1.026, temp runs around 80-81. I tend to do weekly 5g changes.
NO3 was around 10-12 for the first few months, but it's been steadily declining, was down around 4ppm last I checked.
PO4 has been very low.
KH was steady-ish (7-8.4) for a long time, but something was sucking it up a bit more starting around 2 months back, and I've seen it as low as 5.4. Same for Ca (375-435 for a long time, down around 350 lately).
Does anyone have any hints or suggestions?
