Fish and Shrim Disapear-No trace of them

J

jbrim

I have a 29 gallong Biocube that has been running for three weeks, used established rock and sand so very little cycle. I have ~5 hermits, two Emerald Crabs, 3 Chromis and 9 snails. I introduced a cleaner shrimp and he disapeared a week and a half ago with no trace of his body parts. I figured he was off molting so last sunday I put a Bicolor Blenny and a Maroon Clown in the tank as well. On Wednesday the Blenny was gone. Both the shrimp and Blenny appeared happy and healthy prior to disapearing. My tank parameters are good.

I took the majority of the rock out to see if I could find the shrimps body and found nothing. Went through the back compartments and they are not in there (the middle compartment has LR rubble, filter floss and the grate so they would not be in there.

My LFS that I buy my livestock mentioned it could possibly be a Mantis Shrimp (due to the fact that there is no left over body parts to be found) that came from the person I got the established LR from. However he said that there is usually an occasional "snap" sound and I have not heard anything like that.

I am at a loss (both literally and figuratively). I do not want to keep putting livestock into a tank that has a preditor in there that is going to keep taking my creatures. I could take every piece of rock out again (and there are tons of little holes in all of it), but I do not know if I could even find this thing if it is in there. Any suggestions (let me know if the Mantis Shrimp thought is silly, sound???), would you pull all of your rock out and if so how would you even get one of these things to come out even if it was inside some of the rock?

My LFS guy is great and I value his oppinion; he feels that the Mantis is a long shot (not hearing any snapping sounds) and messing around with removing the rock is going to put a lot of stress on the current established system. What would you do in my spot?

Thanks,


Joe
 
If it were a Mantis, I suspect you would also be missing "~5 hermits, two Emerald Crabs, 3 Chromis and 9 snails".
You have enough of a cleanup crew now that if the fish were small, there may not be any remains to find after only a short period of time.
Can you be more specific about this?
"My tank parameters are good. "

What did you test, what test kit, and the results?
 
Hi,

Sorry to hear about your livestock. I am curious as to how much LR you have. It is possible that you are overloading the bio-filter and setting off a mini cycle after adding livestock. Another possibility could be the way the livestock is being acclimated, can you go over your acclimation procedure and list your basic tank parameters.(Ammmonia/Nitrite/PH/Alk/Nitrate/SG)

Cheers!
 
Tom,

Thanks for your reply. The kit that I have is a Red Sea Marine Lab 5 in one. I tested the ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, and pH. The ammonia looked a little elevated (instead of bright yellow on the card it was a little greanish) so I took it into the LFS. He found it to be a tiny bit higher than the week before, but well within range of a healthy tank (he did not give me a number but did say that the test he uses is low level ammonia). the pH was 8.2.

I am not trying to find a smoking gun that is not there; I understand that fish die. The troubling thing for me is that I really thought I would find the shell of the shrimp even if the crabs ate the remains if it died. The Blenny was a couple inches in length and the hand full of hermits are tiny.

Again, thanks for your help.


Joe
 
Joe,
There should be zero ammonia in a fully cycled reef tank. If you were to then add livestock, there would be a larger ammonia spike which is most likely the cause of your livestock death's. I would <u>strongly</u> suggest waiting until your cycle has completed prior to adding anything else to your tank. I'm sure you have read something like this before but this a nice lil' write-up. http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/bionitrogencycle/a/aa073199.htm

Cheers!
 
Ron,

The tank has ~40 lbs of established live rock from a tank that was up for over a year or so and all of the pieces had nice purple coralline algae on it. I also obtained the LS as well and there is a ~2" bed.

My make up water is actually semiconductor grade RODI base and mixed with Instant Ocean and the salinity has been at 1.022-1.023 range.

I started the tank and put three Chromis in it to start the cycle on the advice of the first LFS I spoke to. After a week, I did not get much of a cycle at all and it was explained that the established LR and LS had nothing to really cycle. A week later I put the 4-6 small hermit crabs in as well as the two Emerald crabs. I had no issues so the following week I put the cleaner shrimp and the snails in and all seemed to do fine. Last weekend I put the Bicolor Blenny in as well as a small male Maroon Clown. (I had planned and still will be taking the Chromis out and giving them back to the fish store). After the first week to week and a half the only thing that happened is I have a little brown algea on the walls but no outbreaks what so ever. Also, I had the LFS check the water quality weekly and I checked with the kit every 2-4 days for the first two weeks.

The only other issue is that the tank has always run high in temperature. It usually hovers around 80-81 degrees and one time it did get up to 83-84. It does not see direct sun and I will now be running the lights on timers to make sure we are not causing the issue with heat.

Again, I am green here and just learing but I have not grabbed onto this as the issue on these two dissapearances because of the shell of the shrimp has not been seen even when the rocks where taken out and I have not found the hermits to be congregated in one spot, instead all of the rocks in various locations.

Thanks for your help,


Joe
 
@bimmerzs wrote:
Joe said:
Ron,

There was no ammonia when I put any stock in past the Chrimis; the slight ammonia level that was found was today (me last night when I home-tested and then today when I took my water into the LFS). The LFS owner believed that since I took most of the rocks out of the tank last night looking for the dead shrimp/Blenny, that I probably stirred up the sand enough to cause this issue. I am bringing my water back in tomorrow to have it checked again.

Thanks,


Joe
Click to expand...
 
@jbrim wrote:
The LFS owner believed that since I took most of the rocks out of the tank last night looking for the dead shrimp/Blenny said:
That's possible.....

@jbrim wrote:
He found it to be a tiny bit higher than the week before said:
This is where I see a problem...are you saying that your ammonia levels were zero, nitrite levels were zero and nitrates were ~ 20ppm prior to adding livestock. :?: Just trying to clarify.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Ron,

I want to say yes (when I checked the levels on my own I did not see anything in the tank) and the LFS told me everything was good. I am explaining it this way because I do not want to misleady you or say something that is incorrect but they told me everything in the water is great and start putting livestock into the tank.

When I was talking with the LFS yesterday, he said the increase in ammonia in my current water was so slight that it was barely even noticeable.

Thanks,


Joe
 
How did you acclimate the shrimp before putting him in?

The most common cause of inverts death is acclimation problems. I doubt you would see an ammonia spike or any parts left if one died with those hermits in there.

The blenny on the other hand.. they would make quick work of him if he died, but you should still have seen him hang around for a bit. That may explain the little jump in ammonia you had possibly.

Your Maroon is still okay though correct?

If it were me and I had only 45 lbs of LR, I would eliminate the mantis question first. I would take a nice 5 gallon bucket and fill it half way with RO/DI water and then dunk each piece of LR in there for 5 to 10 mins and see if anything falls out. Keep the rock separated though because they can go from rock to rock quickly.

Now this will have some side effects you need to be aware of. Dipping your LR in water like this will kill off some bacteria, worms and pods. It won't kill them all, but it will get some. It will take some time for those to come back , so be prepared to go slowly adding new things to the tank for a few weeks or so afterwards.

It will eliminate the mantis question though so it may give you some peace of mind and allow you to move onto the next question.
 
Dave,

The Maroon Clown is still in the tank and doing great (eating, swimming all around and fiesty).

The shrimp was introduced in the manner that the LFS told me to acclimate him which was to put the bag into the tank for 15-20 minutes closed to temperature acclimate. I then put 1/2 cut of water from the tank into the bag every 15 minutes for an hour. I then emptied half of the bag into the tank and let 1/2 of the bag full of my tank water for 15 minutes and then slowly emptied the bag into the tank. He did very well and seemed to be fine; even eating some flake food out of my hands up until he disapeared.

Again, my biggest concern in all of this is not finding the shrimp carcus (or seeing the dead Blenny because it remains a mystery. My person helping me from the LFS said that you should really hear occasional "tapping" sounds come from the tank if I have a Mantis Shrimp and from the earlier post from Tom it sounds like a Mantis would clean out a tank in no time and my Emerald crabs have been in the tank the whole time and have done great (as well as the small hermits).

Thanks,


Joe
 
Joe, the shrimp minght not have been acclimated well at the LFS, or the distributor before that.. no way to know. Mught be two unconnected disappearances.
 
@jbrim wrote:
... I then emptied half of the bag into the tank and let 1/2 of the bag full of my tank water for 15 minutes and then slowly emptied the bag into the tank. said:
In the future you may want to consider not adding the store water to your tank. I make an extra effort to avoid doing this when adding new livestock.
Click to expand...
 
@DalaiTom wrote:
In the future you may want to consider not adding the store water to your tank. I make an extra effort to avoid doing this when adding new livestock. said:
Mega DITTO's on that. You should never add the store water to your tank. Also, IMO, acclimation of shrimps is best done very slowly with the drip method.
Click to expand...
 
Also, in regards to finding remains...
the clean up crew you have is enough to dispose of the bodies....

Keep in mind, many of these critters are active at night, and that is when they may have congregated.
Also, blennies love little nooks and crannies... so if he was ill and died, you may not have had a chance to see the body. It may have been in a hole in the live rock, where only the little critters could detect and consume it.

IMHO, I think if you did in fact have a mantis, you would have more missing…
Has anything else disappeared since?
 
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