Dead Emerald Crabs and Peppermint Shrimp!

[sstanle4]

Hello all,
We've had a total of three emerald crabs and four peppermint shrimp in our tank (not all at once, but over the past two months). But we cannot seem to keep them alive. At most, one of the crabs lived a week. The shrimp didn't even make it that long- only a couple of days. But all of our levels are good. We can't figure out why they're dying when all of our hermit crabs and fish are perfectly fine. Please help?

 

[HalfMoon B]

Have you ever medicated the tank with something that had copper in it?

 

[sstanle4]

I don't think so... All we use is Alpha to treat the ammonia and a pH buffer.

 

[bootz]

test for copper

 

[bootz]

Forgot to add: perhaps something in your tap ( if you are not using a R/O unit)

 

[sstanle4]

ok... we are new to this. How do we do that? And what is an R/O unit? haha

 

[bootz]

ok no worries i have been there before. 1. you need a copper Test Kit. 2. Any metals in your water will kill your inverts like crabs and shrimp. R/O unit = reverse osmosis something pretty prevalent in SW fish keeping. Additionally, some stores tend to keep their fish in medicated water this water is filled with copper to keep them ich free while in the store thus you never put the stores water in your own tank. Just a few things to check for.

 

[bootz]

Copper Test Kit - API

That is the copper test i use ( i am sure is the one most use API is one of the big names in testers)

 

[sstanle4]

what other kinds of metals should we be testing for?

 

[sstanle4]

test for copper

We got the test kit and checked our water.. there is no copper in our tank. What else would cause our crabs and shrimp to die? oh! and the glass anenome is also dead (which we dont mind as much). What do we do?