STT to VT

[hma]

....we also Drew, day by day!

[ScubaDrew]

I put a blue leg hermit in my fuge last night. He acted a little strange even after an hour+ drip acclimation. I checked on him this AM and he was in almost the same spot, but lying in front of him was a 1/2 eaten blue let hermit. I just put the fuge together, there is only 1 rock, cheto, 1 mantis (much smaller than the hermit), and a couple gorilla crabs.

The question is - where did the other hermit come from?! Will hermits spend much time out of a shell? Could he have been hiding in the LR that I moved into the fuge?

Very strange.

[Dentoid]

If you are sure there is only one hermit in there, then it could be the molt from that one. They become sluggish and inactive during the molt.

Or you had two, unknowingly, and the mantis beat it to death to eat its flesh and spit out the shell.

[ScubaDrew]

I cannot find any info on the orange sponge. I'm looking to get it in the right place in the tank in terms of lighting flow etc.

exposed to air - hard to say, rock was removed from tank for CC removal, but the sponge was open after this process was completed.

fresh water - no, i topoff in the sump.

its in a sunny location.

flow is low to medium.

Originally Posted by bluespotjawfish

Could be a number of things.

Did it get exposed to air when you put it in your tank or was it submerged the entire time?

Is it in an area where you put fresh water into the tank?

Is it in a sunny or shady spot?

Flow?

You will probably get some die-off of this. The sponge that I have left, closes periodically, then opens back up.

[Dentoid]

Sponges

[goldenmean]

Drew
I had a very small bit of that same orange sponge (and a little purple too) start to go on my TBS rock after a week in my tank. They were open just like in your pic for a few days and then yesterday I went to look at them after i saw your post and they were closed up just like yours.
They were not on that part of the rock when I added it to the tank. They showed up and were open for 3-4 days, then they closed up. Just like yours.

Maybe that is just how this type of sponge is????

[ScubaDrew]

hmm very interesting! I hope that is a good sign that they are behaving similarly and not a sign they are both dying... I'm going to keep trying to ID the stuff so that I might know what kind of light/flow it likes. I hope I'm not burning it up w/ the MH.

[goldenmean]

mine are under mh too but at this point only about 4 hours/day

[ScubaDrew]

Question: Crabs are dying. Not hermits but all the gorilla type crabs. They literlally are laying around on the sand, dead. I just saw this one fall out of a rock, twitch, and die.

What could be causing this? The two pepermint shrimp I purchased last night are fine, hermits are fine, zoas are opening up.

[Melanie]

Hmmm....scary. I wonder what is happening.

[Dentoid]

They are probably dying from either temp, salinity, or pH shock. Remember you scrubed your rock then plunged it into your tank. I doubt you acclimated your rock and the inhabitants on it. There will be a certain amount of die off just from that. Believe me there are many more that will survive. Your tank is in its infancy, sudden death is commonplace. Don't worry about the gorillas, be thankful they are dying!

[ScubaDrew]

You think they would be dying more than a week later from shock?

Here are some photos of one of 3 crabs I took out of the tank today -

this crab obviously has some eggs on it. Also it has some white bumps on its legs - could they be a parasite of some type thats killing them?

I'll try and inspect others as they come out to see if they have these spots also.

[Dentoid]

That's definately some kind of parasite. Be thankful that one died!

[ScubaDrew]

****. Talk about live rock, this stuff's got everything. Hopefully it doesnt kill all my critters.

[ScubaDrew]

So while I'm not picking dead parasite covered crabs out of my tank, I'm working on my fuge.