Fighting Conch & Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

[JeF4y]

Couple of questions..

1. Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp. We introduced one yesterday and, well, its life was worth about $1/min. I really believe it was something wrong with the acclimation. I floated it for 30 min, drained off much of his bag water (down to 8 ounces). Dripped for 1hr until the water was 24 ounces. Netted & placed in the tank to its death.

Nothing else has died in the tank and certainly not this quick. Our levels are very good (I don't have them with me, they are logged at home), so it was either that I poured off too much water causing an acclimation that was too fast, or there was a significant enough temp difference between the drip & the tank.

Next time I'm considering a 30 minute float, 2 hr drip with 16 ounces of bag water, 30 minute float and then inserting into the tank. Am I on the right track?

2. Fighting Conch. I kinda dig these guys and would like one, but I haven't heard much for/against them in the smaller tanks. Any thoughts on having one in a BC29?

 

[JeF4y]

Am I venturing into new territory here or what?

Forget question 1. More interested in the fighting conch. Concerns?

 

[Dentoid]

I think it is safe to say that somewhere, something went wrong in the acclimation process. Acclimation for inverts must be slow, especially if there are differences in pH as small as 0.02 between the bag water and the tanks water. My suggestion for your next shrimp is to test the pH, salinity and temp of the bag water and compare it to the same tank parameters. The greater the difference the longer and slower the acclimation should occur.

As for the the conch, I would be concerned about being able to supply it with enough food in a 29 gallon tank.

 

[JeF4y]

Thanks for the reply and the advice! Good call on testing the bag water. Hadn't thought about that!

On the conch, I have no problem feeding it. Just wondering if there was any major concern with it eating fish or anything. Or if there would be a problem keeping it with crushed coral substrate..

 

[cbrownfish]

I would skip the conch too. As for the shrimp, it is not uncommon for an LFS to run their SG at 1.020-1.022. Add the shrimp to 1.025/6 and you have can have a big problem. Did you keep the temp consistent during the entire acclimation? Did you go directly home from the LFS or have the bag in a small cooler to keep the temp up? Shrimp are very sensitive to even small changes as dentoid alluded (especially salinity). There is a possibilty that the shrimp was not well when you purchased it though.

 

[JeF4y]

I think the temp was likely the issue. We floated the bag for 20-30 min & then dripped in a cup outside the tank. I think that the drip cup had cooled down from where the tank was at before we dumped it in.