dead hermit crabs

[dad2gray_n_evie]

Im trying to find out who is the killer. I found 2 hermit crabs dead today, thay were missing legs and pulled out of their shell. Yesterday it was one thats a total of 3 in the past few weeks. Not to count the 2 two months ago. I think is my large emerals, has any one else had this problem?

[Roll221]

Are you sure it's not just the moltings you are seing? If you are seeing legs, you should also be seeing the empty shells.

Ed

[dad2gray_n_evie]

I took a count of all of the hermits and I am short a few. I scooped the dead guys out and yeap something got to them. I think is my emerald but I havent caught him in the act... I also got another issue, now that my tank is 7 months old I just had a huse brown algae bloom, what is the best method to quickly take care of the problem... Im running phosguard to take care of the phosphates and silicates, I am decreasing light periods to 8 hrs and 6 hrs alternating for a week or so.. what else can anyone recomend...

[WarEagleNR88]

Algae, did you do anything differently that you haven't done before? Different water source? Change salt? New bucket of salt? A lot of uneaten food? Detritus? Nitrate build-up? My first thoughts were maybe your absorbent (Phosguard) is fully absorbed? Did you try to put in a sock of activated carbon? Also, why did you say "now that my tank is 7 months old". Have you experienced any algae before this 7 mo. mark?

And I'm not trying to be an expert or anything close to it, just wanting to gather some more information.

For the hermit crabs, I noticed the same exact thing attacking my hermit crabs--blue legs and zebras. What may be happening is you might have a nuisance crab or more that may be hiding in your LR. If you don't have any moonlights, I'd wait until late at night when the lights are off and have been off for a while. Then bust up looking into your tank with a flashlight and look very closely all throughout the tank at anything strange. If there are nuisance crabs, you will most likely see them crawling around. If you see them, then there are different ways you can get them out of your tank.

I had the same problem, spotlighted the crabs, and got them out. I found two different kinds of intruder crabs. One type was all black and the other type had red beady eyes and they would ball up when you took them out of the water and held them. Since then I haven't had any hermit deaths. I keep 2 mithrax crabs as well and I considered them at first.

Good luck and let us know what's going on with the algae.

Ben

[dad2gray_n_evie]

I think I am going to stay up tonight and see if I can ambush those lil critters, I would doubt I probably have an intruder my wife this she has seen it but I havent so we will see. Thanks for the info.

[Satori]

I had the same brown algae (actually diatoms) outbreak in my tank. When I first set up the tank I didn't have a RO/DI unit, so I was using de-chlorinated tap water. The silicates didn't cause a problem until I upgraded lights, then overnight my whole tank was brown. I had to clean the inside glass twice a day just to be able to see in. I got an RO/DI unit and started doing massive regular water changes. I dumped in a bunch of turbo snails, used phosgaurd in the sump, ran a canister filter full of carbon, reduced the photo period, pulled my hair, complained, reduced the water temp, bought books, removed rocks and washed them, more I can't remember, all to no avail. One day (week) it all went away. I feel your pain, brother. But when it comes down to it, you almost just have to wait it out. By the way, it lasted like 4 months!.

[surfersce]

Originally posted by WarEagleNR88
Algae, did you do anything differently that you haven't done before? Different water source? Change salt? New bucket of salt? A lot of uneaten food? Detritus? Nitrate build-up? My first thoughts were maybe your absorbent (Phosguard) is fully absorbed? Did you try to put in a sock of activated carbon? Also, why did you say "now that my tank is 7 months old". Have you experienced any algae before this 7 mo. mark?

And I'm not trying to be an expert or anything close to it, just wanting to gather some more information.

For the hermit crabs, I noticed the same exact thing attacking my hermit crabs--blue legs and zebras. What may be happening is you might have a nuisance crab or more that may be hiding in your LR. If you don't have any moonlights, I'd wait until late at night when the lights are off and have been off for a while. Then bust up looking into your tank with a flashlight and look very closely all throughout the tank at anything strange. If there are nuisance crabs, you will most likely see them crawling around. If you see them, then there are different ways you can get them out of your tank.

I had the same problem, spotlighted the crabs, and got them out. I found two different kinds of intruder crabs. One type was all black and the other type had red beady eyes and they would ball up when you took them out of the water and held them. Since then I haven't had any hermit deaths. I keep 2 mithrax crabs as well and I considered them at first.

Good luck and let us know what's going on with the algae.

Ben

how big were these intruder crabs?