Thank you, Marcye

[cschweitzer]

Marcye, thanks for listening the other day. For those of you that don't know, I had a little(relatively) crash in one of my 30G tanks the other day. All my corals survived and are doing very well, and I thank God for that. My male mandarin, six line wrasse, arrow crab, sally lightfoot crab, emerald crab, coral banded shrimp, and all but one of my peppermint shrimp met another fate. It is the hardest thing to pull out animals that you have raised from babies and were completely healthy. My snails, conch, limpet, ruby crab, corals, and hermit crabs all survived. I have since done two 50% water changes and everything looks to be back to original sahpe(knock on wood). I wanted to thank Marcye, even though we could not conclude on why this happened, she was there to listen to me and gave up part of her already busy day to try to help in any way possible.

I usually post here when I have an issue with my tank, but it has taken a few days to get over it. My parameters never went out of line; my phosphates were a little above normal, but I conclude that was because of the death, not the other way around. My best guess is a chemical(something I cannot test for with base aquarium test kits) was introduced with a top-off. Losing a couple hundred bucks sucks, but when it's in the form of a creature that depends on you for existance, it is even harder. But, now, looking on the bright side, everything seems to be back to grand pecking order. I am also glad my male mandarin started beating up on the female, which I originally thought was a disaster, because that is probably the only thing that saved her.

 

[cschweitzer]

By the way, if anyone knows a chemical or anything else that could cause crabs and shrimp to die, but not snails or hermits or corals, please let me know so this will never happen again. Thanks.

 

[waterfaller1]

So sorry for your losses Craig.
Phosphates were how much? High PO4 equates to ammonia.

 

[cschweitzer]

PO4 were at .5 after the deaths, but before the water change. Still a couple things I couldn't find. Gonna go home and move some rocks, hopefully get anything else out.

 

[cschweitzer]

Ammonia at 0, even after the deaths

 

[tomlando]

Wow, sorry to hear that, Craig. I had a similar thing that took a blue hippo, yellow tang, clown and three peppermint shrimp in February. I thought it was because the tank was only a month old and I jumped the gun stocking it. Glad to hear things are back on track, bro!

 

[tomlando]

btw, Marcye is the best! She trys so hard to listen and help where ever she can. If all store owners and workers had her attitude there would be a lot less critter loss in our hobby.

 

[Me No Nemo]

Awwww, thanks guys! Sorry I couldn't offer more help, Craig. It's really hard to figure out what's going on when something like that happens. I still think something may have gotten into the water and that the large water changes were your best move (the solution to pollution is dilution...). I'm very glad all seems back to normal and know you can call anytime. Tom, you are so sweet. Thanks