mysterious water contamination and dead hermit crabs

[eleodes]

hi all! i'm new.

i have a pretty new, pretty small salwater setup--i suppose you could call it a lagoon--with several species of macroalgae, soft corals and some live rock.

last week the tank developed a mysterious water quality problem. most of my hermit crabs and a couple of snails perished. an aggressive water change helped and it is now looking better, although the surviving crabs still look sort of sad. curiously, the fish and cnidarians did not seem to be affected at all. ammonia, nitrite and nitrate all tested "0".

the only thing that i had added to tank was of a small pump and a wad of epoxy securing a coral to a piece of rock. the epoxy was sold as "aquarium safe" underwater epoxy.

my observations seemed to be consistent with what somebody had suggested might be copper poisoning. could either the pump or the epoxy have leached copper or something else nasty into tank? should i chisel the coral from that rock and get the epoxy out of there?

thanks for considering this.

[bertoni]

<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

What brand of epoxy was it? I haven't had problems with the ones marked "aquarium safe". What type of pump?

[jjmg]

What kind of small puimp did you add? Maybe a screw that wasn't SW safe? Was it aquarium pump or something from HD?

[eleodes]

hmmm, i'll have to get brand names from home and post later. both pump and epoxy were purchased from aquarium supply store.

[Conano]

Do you by chance have Cats or Dogs? if so, Do you by chance use the advantage, or other flea medicins that go on the skin, under the fur betweent he shoulderblades or under the armpits?

[eleodes]

Conano--my roommates have dogs and cats. They are, however, always in the upstairs apartment and never near my tanks. As far as I know they haven't been medicated for anything recently. It sounds as though you have experience with this(?).

As far as I can recall I wasn't handling anything unusual, but I have wondered if I could have introduced any kind of bad chemical on my hands.

It seems as though something like a pesticide might indeed cause effects in molluscs and crustaceans, but not other groups(?).

[Conano]

I personally have never experianced this, luckaly. but yes, you are correct that flea and tick medications can kill off your invertibrate population. Flea and crabs have many close properties. both animals are invertibrates.

I read a thread on this sight a few months ago, where a man came home, pat his dog on the back, then went to feed his tank. his hand was only in the water for a few seconds, but even that was enough to contaminate his over 100 gallon tank. all his invertibrates started dying a few minutes later. copods, hermits, ect. leaving his fish and such alone.

just trying to make sure nothing was missed. and as a note, ALWAYS wash your hands before you put them in your tank.