Dead Hermit...

[steveb]

I would like to begin with the "I am new to this" disclaimer....
I started my 72 g with some crushed coral substrate, 35lbs of live rock, 7 damsels, 4 hermis, and 4 snails a couple of months ago. Three weeks ago, I aquired the following from a friend that had a well established 120g reef tank and was relocating:

60lb live sand
10lb live rock
9 or so corals (the names remain baffling to me)
1 small Clown
1 Larger blue tang (has a little ick)one cube of
1 really friggin cool Mandarin.
gallery
I kept one blue damsel, replaced my substrate with the live sand.

I curently have the following for equipment
Sump w/intergal protien skimmer
Fluval 404
2-power heads
4-4' VHO's (2-blue, 2-white)

Here is a run down of the current water quality as per my Aquarium Pharmecuticals "Saltwater Master Liquid Test Kit"
Temp 78
Salinity 1.023
ph 8.8
Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 20ppm (this is the same as the plain tap water I have)

My daily treatment regimine:
C Balance A&B one capful per day
Coral Vital 1/2 capful per day
Marine Max 1tsp per day

Feeding:
One cube of "Formula One" w/2 drops garlic extreme and Kent "Zoe" (once in the morning and once at night)
One squirt liqid life bio plankon (blue bottle) in the morning

Everything appears to be doing awesome, however I found a dead hermit crab out of his shell this morning and am concerned. Are there any steps I should be taking? Should I even worry at all?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[NaH2O]

Welcome to Reef Frontiers!!! Sometimes crab molts can look like a dead crab. Have you done a head count on the crabs? Provided everything else is looking good, acting normal, eating, and your water parameters are alright, then I wouldn't worry about it. When you set the tank up, did it experience an ammonia spike? If so, was all the livestock in the tank? I take it you are using tap water, since you posted the nitrates are the same as tap. RO/DI water may help out with reducing that. Also, salinity is a little low, IMO. You want your salinity to be around 35 ppt for a reef tank, which is 1.026 (if you change the salinity, do it slowly). Here is an article about: Reef Aquarium Water Parameters.

 

[steveb]

That is great information!! I knew nothing of the molting proccess for the hermits. I will try to track down all of the little critters...when we added the livestock I was so worried about getting the corals and fish in place properly, I didnt bother to count the hermit crabs we got with the whole deal. I did experience an ammonia spike during the first 30 days. At that time, we had only damsels and live rock. I will work at bringing the salinity up over the next while, I read the article to which you refer and it all makes sense. Looks like I may need a way to test alkalinity and calcium? This is all alot to learn at once but man is the tank alot of fun!!

 

[Tangee]

Hi Steve,
You might want to retest for Ph, that number (8.8) seems pretty high to me and should probably come down to about 8.3. Also, if you're dosing C-balance every day I would get a Calcium and Alkalinity test and run them regularly. When I was using C-balance it threw my whole system totally out of whack, dropping the calcium and raising the Alk to dangerously high levels. Good luck, when you need help this is a great place to be!

Susie