Coral Banded Shrimp

[youknow2025]

Okay I went to my lfs yesterday and bought a frospawn frag, three turbo shrimp, and a coral banded shrimp. My shrimp was fine yesterday and was acting normal. I noticed that it doesn't have the giant third leg (claw) on either side. Today I have caught it stuck on its back seven times. Is this normal behavior? Should I take it back due to the missing claws. It seems left defenseless.

 

[Crepe]

They should regrow...it's probably stressed out. How is the ammonia in your tank? That causes most inverts to well...invert.

 

[youknow2025]

I don't have a test kit for that. I would imagine it be high since I have hair algae growing. This was my reason for getting the turbo snails. Should I get a test kit?

 

[Crepe]

...You should have a test kit for every water parem. This includes:
pH, ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, dKH, GH, calcium and phosphates. Although in fw you can get away with only ph, nitrates, nitrites and ammonia, you need a much larger spectrum of tests for sw. You might also want to check your salinity, marine inverts live better in lower salinity than fish.

 

[Zer0]

Actually.. the natural salinity level of the ocean is 1.026.. and fish and inverts both share the ocean. I've never heard of inverts liking lower salinity levels than fish. Crepe, you must be thinking of Nitrates. Inverts, including coral, don't respond well to aquariums with high levels of Nitrates. However, fish on the other hand, can survive in very high levels of Nitrates. I think there was a thread opened by Floyd R Turbo about one of the tanks he maintains, and one tank had something like over 300ppm of nitrates.. i think that was the number. Yet the fish were still living. But there were no coral or inverts in that tank.

As for the test kits, it's a little shocking that you even started a tank, regardless of whether it was FW or SW, without test kits. And since you don't have test kits, i can only imagine that your tank isn't cycled. Which means.. unless you do tons of water changes, your livestock is more or less going to die. All of them. Including the coral you bought.

Oh yeah, and the green hair algae doesn't mean that there is ammonia in the water. GHA is caused by many things. Overfeeding, nitrates, phosphates, keeping the lights on for long long periods of time.. and there are so many more things that contribute to hair algae.


Honestly, in this situation, i would first go out and get a test kit. Even a test kit for the simple things like nitrite, ammonia, nitrates, etc.. is better than not having a test kit at all. You need to test your water, and see what the results are and then post them here so we can give you advice and what it is you need to do to keep your livestock alive. And if it's really bad, you might have better luck just returning your livestock so they don't die, and then starting the tank over. Properly this time.

But the first step is to get a test kit and post your water parameters here so we can help you.
Hope this helps.

 

[HN1]

Youknow- A couple questions... how long has your tank been set up? Can you tell us more about it? Fish? Lighting? Feeding? etc. Without more details, it's easy to jump to a lot of different assumptions. Help narrow things down for us.

A test kit (liquid reagent) is, as stated, a must though.

 

[youknow2025]

My tank has been set up since December 25, 2009.
I have three damsels, two Ocellaris Clownfish, two hermit crabs, three turbo snails, one cerith snail.
I have a Coralife Aqualight Double Linear Strip, 4X65 Watt, 48 inch
I feed frozen mysis shrimp.

My salinity is at 1.025
Temperature is at 82 degrees
My nitrates are between 12.5 and 25 mg/l. (I am doing a water change later tonight)

Yeah thanks HN1 for being nice and not assuming.

 

[Crepe]

snip

Thank god you caught that mistake, I meant it the other way around. Sorry, it's been a long time since I've kept marine aquaria, here is an excerpt from the book I use: "The normal SG readings for most tanks range from 1.022 to 1.026. At these levels, most fishes even those from the Red Sea, will do well. Fish-only aquariums may be run at the lower end of the range- 1.020 to 1.023-without problems, but many keepers of corals and delicate invertabrates keep their tanks at SG levels close to that of natrual seawater: from 1.024-1.026"

I think it's time for me to retire my SW advice badge.

EDIT: Nitrates are way too high. It needs to be less than 5ppm.

2 50% water changes of RO water will reduce it to that amount. Done over the course of 2-3 days.

 

[youknow2025]

What action should I take in the lowering of these nitrates?

 

[Crepe]

What action should I take in the lowering of these nitrates?

Beyond PWC, not much. What's the volume of your tank. Reducing stocking levels also will slow down the rate of nitrate production. As will reducing feeding. Basically any action that reduces the amount of organics going into your tank.

 

[youknow2025]

Its a 37gallon (30 X 12.5 X 22).
What do you mean by reducing stocking levels?
Alright I will reduce feeding.
How long would you recomend on lighting timing?

 

[Zer0]

Crepe, no need to retire from giving advice. It was just a simple mistake. No harm done.

As for the nitrates, i agree with the water changes. Probably the best thing you could do for your tank right now. Still, you should test for nitrites and ammonia, just so we can rule out that those were not causing the problem and it IS just the nitrates.

Also, how often do you feed? Excess nitrates can also be caused by overfeeding, and i see that happen more often than you think. Feeding every other day, even skipping two days is fine. Unless you have anthias, which you don't.

When crepe said reducing the stocking levels, he means, get rid of some livestock. Maybe a fish or two.. but since inverts add almost nothing to the bioload of the tank i wouldn't worry about getting rid of those.

8-9 hours a day is good for the lighting. You shouldn't need to have them on any longer.

 

[Crepe]

Its a 37gallon (30 X 12.5 X 22).
What do you mean by reducing stocking levels?
Alright I will reduce feeding.
How long would you recomend on lighting timing?

Stocking levels means the amount of livestock you have in your tank. 3 damels and 2 clowns, for now doesn't seem too bad in a 37. Depending on what type of damsels you have, you may have some territorial issues in the future though.

I say reduce feeding for awhile to see if it will go down, or feed more judiciously. I've only been a FOWLR keeper so I can't answer the lighting question, never had corals before.

 

[youknow2025]

I feed daily and in my opinion its a lot! I only do that though is because my damsels go into like a shock and idk why. They get white spots all over them or turn pure white. After the lights are turned on and they eat they are fine. Is there a reason behind this? And I'm getting rid of at least one damsel. Maybe all of them.

 

[HN1]

Water changes are a good start. Sending a few fish to the LFS (reducing stocking) will help as well. Damsels (clowns inclusive) tend to get grumpy and aggressive as they age so you need to reduce the number before real problems show themselves.

As far as cycling, etc... I'd suggest starting with reading some of the articles available here. Take the advice you've received in the past tense after you read and understand the basics of the nitrogen cycle. It will make better sense then. You seem like you care, so I'm sure you'll be fine and do your best by the animals. There is a ton of experience and a bunch of great folks here. Our first priority tends to be the fish though.

 

[youknow2025]

Just did a 15ish% water change.

 

[mitton]

I feed daily and in my opinion its a lot! I only do that though is because my damsels go into like a shock and idk why. They get white spots all over them or turn pure white. After the lights are turned on and they eat they are fine. Is there a reason behind this? And I'm getting rid of at least one damsel. Maybe all of them.

the damsels turning opaque is a natural defense of the fish, nothing to worry about at all. I'd get rid of the damsels for sure! as stated earlier in the thread, they get VERY territorial and are a nightmare to catch in matured tanks (ridiculously quick! and you end up scaring everything in the tank and possibly knocking rocks out of place - not fun!) i have the same prob at the mo. 3 regal damsels run riot until my coral beauty puts them in their place .

with the nitrates - to start with, test every 2-3 days to make sure that the levels are dropping then test once a week. I test every sat morning (thats everything mind you) get into a habit of doing so, so you can catch any anomalies sooner rather than later.

i noticed in your second post you said you had a lot of hair algae, that is most likely your phosphates. although, if you test for it it will prob show very low or non. but the algae absorbs phosphates, thus the reading being low/non. do you use a canister filter? if so get some phos-zorb or similar and get that in the filter. this will suck all the phosphate out. prob take a month or so before you see results but well worth it. note: change every2/3 months.

hope all this helps - good luck

James

 

[Jimbo7]

Any progress with the shrimp? If you have a large amount of inverts, you might consider dosing iodine, it helps harden their shells and improves growth and vitality. Make sure you test it first to see where it's at. If you overdose it can quickly become extremely poisonous.

 

[stegm1sc]

just a bit of experience info on the coral banded shrimp...
when i did a saltwater tank w/ some buddies in college, we had a coral banded shrimp and he got REALLY big over the course of about 8 months... during months 5 through 8 he ate a scooter blenny, two peppermint shrimps and a pretty big cleaner shrimp... and one time he lost one of his big pinchers and like 2-3 days later it just magically reaapeared (it was soft and took another 3 days to harden up)