Dead Clean up crew....starvation?

djbacon · 02-08-2008, 01:03 PM

Hi everyone, quick question/problem

about 10 days ago I added my CUC consisting of 4 trochus snails, 3 nassarius, 1 scarlet hermit and a fire shrimp.

Running a 14g biocube and let it cycle about a month before adding anything.

I followed Prow's cycling for newbies instructions pretty closely and felt i did a good job, keep the lights down to a minimum to minimize aglae growth etc.

My levels are pretty steady..

PH8
SG 1.022
Temp 78
NH3/4 0
N03 < 12.5

My problem is 2 of my trochus snails were found dead this morning...on their sides. They are much larger than the hermit so i do not think he is responsible, (cant be sure) I think they starved to death...I have no fish in the tank and although I did have a little brown algae prior to their being added the CUC seems to have made short work of it quickly...Is it possible that the lack of a food source (excpet for the shrimp) and keeping the lights off made for too little production of food (algae) for the CUC?

I feed the shrimp a couple mysis shrimp every other day. My big concern now is hopw the nassarius snails are doing that live uinder the sand. They rarely come out and I do not want to find one of them rotting later. Also do not want to stir up the sand to much and mess up my bacteria.

Thoughts?

michael_cb_125 · 02-08-2008, 01:45 PM

I dont hink that your snails died of starvation. I am pretty sure that there is enough food in there for them. Even if there was no food they should last longer than ten days. ~Michael

framerguy · 02-08-2008, 02:18 PM

If you added all those critters at once, it may have been an ammonia spike that got them. That is a large load for a 14g. Three snails should be tops in there. Also, acclimation is critical for inverts as they cannot stand quick changes in temp, salinity, or ph. So my guess is acclimation, or bio-overload.

djbacon · 02-08-2008, 11:04 PM

yeah. Added in 3 batches over several days. Drop acclimated for about an hour. All snails were very active for the first week. Can't figure it

framerguy · 02-08-2008, 11:15 PM

Sponteneous die off does happen and it's unexplained sometimes. Try acclimating a little longer next time. Dr. Shimek recommends a minimum three hours and suggests six hours. It's possible that's a little excessive but I do drip three or four hours myself.

CMG · 02-09-2008, 12:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by framerguy

Sponteneous die off does happen and it's unexplained sometimes. Try acclimating a little longer next time. Dr. Shimek recommends a minimum three hours and suggests six hours. It's possible that's a little excessive but I do drip three or four hours myself.

3 or 4 hours! yikes, mine has been acclimating now for about 20 minutes. The directions I got were to drip acclimate until water level doubled then empty half of it and drip again until it doubles, then its ready which only takes about 45min-1hr. Is this totaly wrong?!?!?!?!

djbacon · 02-09-2008, 01:59 AM

Update - this all happened while i was out of town. Now that I have spent some time at home with the wife and gotten the full story, turns out she found the scarlett hermitt on top of the snails on a couple occasions...could be he is looking for a bigger home.

Inclined to let him have it, but dont want to let the thing rot in the tank...anyone know how to extract the remaining snail carcass from the shell?

djbacon · 02-15-2008, 01:17 PM

been home another week and Im sad to report that Ive lost a thrid snail from my original trochus purchase. I dripped them for an hour. Everything else in the enak is doing GREAT. Must have been acclimation. All my water levels are right where they should be...Weird though, the nassarius snails were acclimated the smae way and they are VERY active and healthy.

This 3rd one seemed to just slow down until I found him on his back...

mswiss · 02-15-2008, 06:40 PM

That sounds like too large of a clean up crew for that size. I have a 29g with 20 pounds of live rock and 20 pds of live sand. My clean up crew consists of two turbo snails, electric blue hermit , peppermint shrimp and a cleaner shrimp. the shrimps do a great job catching the extra flake food the snails do a decent job on the glass ( icould probably use another) and the hermit stirs up the sand nicely and doesnt leave any algae left over at all. I remember when i put him in i was thinking thank god i didnt get another because it would starve. As far as acclimation i have done drip and everything else i dont think it matters that much 45min 1 hr is good. if they are going to die they are going to die with what these animals have already been put through.

ReefGuy69 · 02-15-2008, 07:49 PM

I usuallly drip for an hour for all my fish, inverts, corals and what not. the only thing i would do several hours for is an anemone.

JT101 · 02-15-2008, 08:05 PM

Last June, I harvested 19 local mud snails (the New England version of the tropical nassarius snail) from a salt marsh in Bayville NY. I let them sit in a plastic container floating in my tank for 15 minutes and then just dropped them all in.

As of this moment, 16 are still alive. Two of them got attacked almost immediately by some hermit crabs that I put in sometime in July (I brought them all back to the LFS). One died from mysterious reasons in September.

I am not sure what happened to your snails. Perhaps my local snails were just more hardy? Either way, I'm sorry for the loss of your livestock.

lcstorc · 02-15-2008, 09:57 PM

It is most likely that the hermits ate the snails frequently. That is one reason the Crabs are Evil Club was formed. They will eat anything they can get their claws on.
As far as acclimation the way you described is a reasonable rish acclimation. Inverts are very susceptible to changed in osmotic pressure That is why they need a much longer acclimation.

framerguy · 02-15-2008, 11:27 PM

JT101- you are correct in that knowing where your animals came from made a difference in how you acclimated them. If you know your animals came from a tide pool then you can acclimate quickly. Most of us don't know where our animals were collected so longer acclimation is a safety net.

DJBacon- with your wife witnessing the hermit on the snail then I think you found your culprit. Even though scarlet legs are "less likely' to kill snails it doesn't mean they won't. I have evicted all of my hermits in favor of snails. My refugium is full of criminals. The nassarius also may have come from a tidepool area and had adapted to changing parameters.

ReefGuy69- I think you should add Starfish to you list of animals you would accilmate for hours. Of all the animals we keep, they are probably the most sensitive to changes.

ReefGuy69 · 02-15-2008, 11:28 PM

yep good call greg. that is another one i forgot to mention. they are very sensitive.

slakker · 02-16-2008, 12:06 AM

I have 2 trochus in a 72G with other CUCs, but the trochus is a voracious grazer. Our local LFS livestock gal warned us to watch them to ensure they have enough algae and to bring one back if there's not enough food for them.

Within 1 week, 1/2 my string and film algae are gone! So it may be starvation.

02-08-2008, 01:03 PM	#1 (permalink)
djbacon Torch coral Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: San Francisco Posts: 564 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Dead Clean up crew....starvation? Hi everyone, quick question/problem about 10 days ago I added my CUC consisting of 4 trochus snails, 3 nassarius, 1 scarlet hermit and a fire shrimp. Running a 14g biocube and let it cycle about a month before adding anything. I followed Prow's cycling for newbies instructions pretty closely and felt i did a good job, keep the lights down to a minimum to minimize aglae growth etc. My levels are pretty steady.. PH8 SG 1.022 Temp 78 NH3/4 0 N03 < 12.5 My problem is 2 of my trochus snails were found dead this morning...on their sides. They are much larger than the hermit so i do not think he is responsible, (cant be sure) I think they starved to death...I have no fish in the tank and although I did have a little brown algae prior to their being added the CUC seems to have made short work of it quickly...Is it possible that the lack of a food source (excpet for the shrimp) and keeping the lights off made for too little production of food (algae) for the CUC? I feed the shrimp a couple mysis shrimp every other day. My big concern now is hopw the nassarius snails are doing that live uinder the sand. They rarely come out and I do not want to find one of them rotting later. Also do not want to stir up the sand to much and mess up my bacteria. Thoughts? __________________ Check out my awesome 14g nanoreef in progress - http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...ater-tank.html The Nano Club - It's not the size of the reef. It's what's in it that counts

02-08-2008, 01:45 PM	#2 (permalink)
michael_cb_125 Manta Ray Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Charlotte,NC Posts: 3,344 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? I dont hink that your snails died of starvation. I am pretty sure that there is enough food in there for them. Even if there was no food they should last longer than ten days. ~Michael __________________ In the process of taking the 240 down. Setting up an Elos System 70 and Elos Mini.

02-08-2008, 02:18 PM	#3 (permalink)
framerguy Manta Ray Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Mount Airy, Ga Posts: 3,469 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? If you added all those critters at once, it may have been an ammonia spike that got them. That is a large load for a 14g. Three snails should be tops in there. Also, acclimation is critical for inverts as they cannot stand quick changes in temp, salinity, or ph. So my guess is acclimation, or bio-overload. __________________ ___________________________________ Greg All time fav quote: "Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."-Guillaume Apollinaire "Being happy can be as easy as deciding to be!"-Greg Kimsey (framerguy) Still Workin' on it! 375gDT built in wall, Gargantuan DIY Beckett Skimmer, 100g sump, Sequence Hammerhead closed loop, 75 gallon seagrass/mineral mud refugium, 55 gallon crushed coral/live rock refugium, 30 gallon DSB/ cheatomorpha refugium, algae turf scrubber, DIY calcium reactor, DIY kalkwasser mixer, DIY light system w/4x 250MH & 4x54w T5, etc, etc, etc... chronicles-akwareum

02-08-2008, 11:04 PM	#4 (permalink)
djbacon Torch coral Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: San Francisco Posts: 564 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? yeah. Added in 3 batches over several days. Drop acclimated for about an hour. All snails were very active for the first week. Can't figure it

02-08-2008, 11:15 PM	#5 (permalink)
framerguy Manta Ray Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Mount Airy, Ga Posts: 3,469 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? Sponteneous die off does happen and it's unexplained sometimes. Try acclimating a little longer next time. Dr. Shimek recommends a minimum three hours and suggests six hours. It's possible that's a little excessive but I do drip three or four hours myself. __________________ ___________________________________ Greg All time fav quote: "Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."-Guillaume Apollinaire "Being happy can be as easy as deciding to be!"-Greg Kimsey (framerguy) Still Workin' on it! 375gDT built in wall, Gargantuan DIY Beckett Skimmer, 100g sump, Sequence Hammerhead closed loop, 75 gallon seagrass/mineral mud refugium, 55 gallon crushed coral/live rock refugium, 30 gallon DSB/ cheatomorpha refugium, algae turf scrubber, DIY calcium reactor, DIY kalkwasser mixer, DIY light system w/4x 250MH & 4x54w T5, etc, etc, etc... chronicles-akwareum

02-09-2008, 01:59 AM	#7 (permalink)
djbacon Torch coral Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: San Francisco Posts: 564 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? Update - this all happened while i was out of town. Now that I have spent some time at home with the wife and gotten the full story, turns out she found the scarlett hermitt on top of the snails on a couple occasions...could be he is looking for a bigger home. Inclined to let him have it, but dont want to let the thing rot in the tank...anyone know how to extract the remaining snail carcass from the shell? __________________ Check out my awesome 14g nanoreef in progress - http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...ater-tank.html The Nano Club - It's not the size of the reef. It's what's in it that counts

02-15-2008, 01:17 PM	#8 (permalink)
djbacon Torch coral Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: San Francisco Posts: 564 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew... been home another week and Im sad to report that Ive lost a thrid snail from my original trochus purchase. I dripped them for an hour. Everything else in the enak is doing GREAT. Must have been acclimation. All my water levels are right where they should be...Weird though, the nassarius snails were acclimated the smae way and they are VERY active and healthy. This 3rd one seemed to just slow down until I found him on his back... __________________ Check out my awesome 14g nanoreef in progress - http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...ater-tank.html The Nano Club - It's not the size of the reef. It's what's in it that counts

02-15-2008, 06:40 PM	#9 (permalink)
mswiss Has been struck by the ban stick Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: New Paltz, NY Posts: 13 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? That sounds like too large of a clean up crew for that size. I have a 29g with 20 pounds of live rock and 20 pds of live sand. My clean up crew consists of two turbo snails, electric blue hermit , peppermint shrimp and a cleaner shrimp. the shrimps do a great job catching the extra flake food the snails do a decent job on the glass ( icould probably use another) and the hermit stirs up the sand nicely and doesnt leave any algae left over at all. I remember when i put him in i was thinking thank god i didnt get another because it would starve. As far as acclimation i have done drip and everything else i dont think it matters that much 45min 1 hr is good. if they are going to die they are going to die with what these animals have already been put through.

02-15-2008, 07:49 PM	#10 (permalink)
ReefGuy69 Plate Coral Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Syracuse, NY Posts: 746 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? I usuallly drip for an hour for all my fish, inverts, corals and what not. the only thing i would do several hours for is an anemone. __________________ Dennis ________ http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...journal-3.html 55gal AGA w/ built in overflow 15 gal acrylic DIY sump/fuge 75lbs Fiji Live Rock 45lbs of Live Sand 1-1/2inch (1) 96 watt Super Blue Actinic Power Compact (2) 96 Watt 10,000k Power Compacts (2) Ebo Jager 200 watt heaters Seaclone 150 Skimmer (2) Hagen 50's Power Heads for flow (1) Hagen 70 Return Pump DIY ATO system (5 Gal) Mini Aqua Lights for fuge (10k/Actinic03) TLF 150 Phosban Reactor 12X turnover rate 2 Ocellaris Clownfish, 1 Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp, 1 Peppermint Shrimp, Neon Green Hairy Mushrooms, Red Zoanthus Polyps.

02-15-2008, 08:05 PM	#11 (permalink)
JT101 Neon dottyback Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Hicksville NY Posts: 605 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? Last June, I harvested 19 local mud snails (the New England version of the tropical nassarius snail) from a salt marsh in Bayville NY. I let them sit in a plastic container floating in my tank for 15 minutes and then just dropped them all in. As of this moment, 16 are still alive. Two of them got attacked almost immediately by some hermit crabs that I put in sometime in July (I brought them all back to the LFS). One died from mysterious reasons in September. I am not sure what happened to your snails. Perhaps my local snails were just more hardy? Either way, I'm sorry for the loss of your livestock.

02-15-2008, 09:57 PM	#12 (permalink)
lcstorc Sunshine Reefer Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Cocoa Fl Posts: 19,905 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? It is most likely that the hermits ate the snails frequently. That is one reason the Crabs are Evil Club was formed. They will eat anything they can get their claws on. As far as acclimation the way you described is a reasonable rish acclimation. Inverts are very susceptible to changed in osmotic pressure That is why they need a much longer acclimation. __________________ Peace LYNN You can't change the past but you can change how you view it. A reef tank is like a racecar. The faster you go the harder you crash. Lynn and Franks saltwater adventure Lynn's 20g clown tank Lynn's 90g of sunshine Every 60 seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back. In Loving Memory Of Z 01/22/07 - 08/19/08

02-15-2008, 11:27 PM	#13 (permalink)
framerguy Manta Ray Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Mount Airy, Ga Posts: 3,469 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? JT101- you are correct in that knowing where your animals came from made a difference in how you acclimated them. If you know your animals came from a tide pool then you can acclimate quickly. Most of us don't know where our animals were collected so longer acclimation is a safety net. DJBacon- with your wife witnessing the hermit on the snail then I think you found your culprit. Even though scarlet legs are "less likely' to kill snails it doesn't mean they won't. I have evicted all of my hermits in favor of snails. My refugium is full of criminals. The nassarius also may have come from a tidepool area and had adapted to changing parameters. ReefGuy69- I think you should add Starfish to you list of animals you would accilmate for hours. Of all the animals we keep, they are probably the most sensitive to changes. __________________ ___________________________________ Greg All time fav quote: "Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."-Guillaume Apollinaire "Being happy can be as easy as deciding to be!"-Greg Kimsey (framerguy) Still Workin' on it! 375gDT built in wall, Gargantuan DIY Beckett Skimmer, 100g sump, Sequence Hammerhead closed loop, 75 gallon seagrass/mineral mud refugium, 55 gallon crushed coral/live rock refugium, 30 gallon DSB/ cheatomorpha refugium, algae turf scrubber, DIY calcium reactor, DIY kalkwasser mixer, DIY light system w/4x 250MH & 4x54w T5, etc, etc, etc... chronicles-akwareum

02-15-2008, 11:28 PM	#14 (permalink)
ReefGuy69 Plate Coral Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Syracuse, NY Posts: 746 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? yep good call greg. that is another one i forgot to mention. they are very sensitive. __________________ Dennis ________ http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...journal-3.html 55gal AGA w/ built in overflow 15 gal acrylic DIY sump/fuge 75lbs Fiji Live Rock 45lbs of Live Sand 1-1/2inch (1) 96 watt Super Blue Actinic Power Compact (2) 96 Watt 10,000k Power Compacts (2) Ebo Jager 200 watt heaters Seaclone 150 Skimmer (2) Hagen 50's Power Heads for flow (1) Hagen 70 Return Pump DIY ATO system (5 Gal) Mini Aqua Lights for fuge (10k/Actinic03) TLF 150 Phosban Reactor 12X turnover rate 2 Ocellaris Clownfish, 1 Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp, 1 Peppermint Shrimp, Neon Green Hairy Mushrooms, Red Zoanthus Polyps.

02-16-2008, 12:06 AM	#15 (permalink)
slakker Tuxedo Urchin Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 285 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Dead Clean up crew....starvation? I have 2 trochus in a 72G with other CUCs, but the trochus is a voracious grazer. Our local LFS livestock gal warned us to watch them to ensure they have enough algae and to bring one back if there's not enough food for them. Within 1 week, 1/2 my string and film algae are gone! So it may be starvation.

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