first tank woes

J

jjakes24

AC Members
Feb 13, 2005
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well, i finally stocked my 10 g tank since it was cycled and had some mishaps, but I can't figure out what went wrong. I stocked it with 5 snails, 3 hermit crabs and 1 clownfish. the clown seems to be doing fine, all the snails are fine, but I lost 2 hermit crabs in the first 2 days of having them and currently can not find the 3rd one. My water parameters seem good and they are as follows:

PH 8.0
SG - 1.024
Temp 78 degrees
Ammonia 0 PPM
Nitrite 0 PPM
Nitrate 20 PPM

I did notice a PH spike the other day. It got up to 8.8 somehow but has stabalized since then, i still have no idea how that happened. When I added everything to the tank, I took about 45 minutes to acclimate them by slowly adding my tank water into there bags every 10 minutes. Anyone have any idea why I lost my hermit crabs? I am really puzzled on this
 
I have talked to a number of folks that swear that pH below 8.3 will kill you're saltwater fish. I don't know the validity of it, but I heard it from 3 LFS too when I asked if it was true and told them my pH was 8.0. The last LFS had this stuff called pH 8.3 by SeaChem ($9) that raises your pH to 8.3. I went ahead and got that, better to be safe than sorry. It raised the pH in my 135 gallon tank within 30 minutes
 
your nitrates are high you need to bring them down. I would of added the inverts then a week or two later i would then add the clown. dont add anything until the nitrates are down.
 
If the water at the LFS varies significantly from your own, 45 minutes probably is not a long enough acclimation time for all animals. The nitrates are not high enough to be lethal, nor is the pH, for animals already used to the conditions. It's the sudden change (and 45 minutes is indeed rapid for SW animals--the ocean is very stable) that causes problems.
 
sounds good. One hermit crab is alive, i found him today. He seems to be ok, find him in different places every day but never catch him moving. Everything else in the tank is doing fine, the clown is doing well and eating every day. It was just the hermits I had problems with. How much time should i spend for acclimation next time?
 
Without knowing how different your water is from the LFS, it's hard to say. I's try going for 2 hours, see how that works, and then go from there. If you can get parameters from the LFS, we can give you a better idea.
 
I'll find out the LFS parameters friday. Someone suggested that the one hermit may of killed the other two? Is that possible? If the did kill them, would they of pulled them out of there shell? My two hermits died in there shell
 
Doesn't sem likely. Hermits will fight over shells, but the victor wouldn't leave the loser intact in the shell. Hermits will also kill snails just to check out the housing potential of the shell--some are worse than others. In your case, neither seems likely. This behavior is most prevalent once the hermits are established and growing.
 
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