Hi all! I haven't been on here in a mighty long time and not really sure where to put this because I guess it could have gone in a few places. I've had my 20 gallon up for about a year and a half. This is what is/was in the tank:
live sand
live rock
1 clarkii clownfish
1 engineer goby
1 Dardanus spp. hermit crab (w/ 2 anemones attached to the shell)
1 red legged hermit crab
1 decorator crab
2 green chromis
Was a little concerned that the dardanus and decorator crab would clash but they completely left each other alone. Never had any problems with any of the fish or inverts, other than the clarkii was a bit territorial to his plant that he treated like an anemone. So that was the tank.
Anyways, last Tuesday the dardanus crab died. Found him half alive floating in the clarkii's plant. I thought maybe he was trying to switch shells and didn't find the other shells acceptable and started getting picked at until he couldn't be saved. I left the shell with the anemones. The SG was getting a little lower than I like so I did a partial water change Wednesday and all the levels were lookin good. I went out of town Friday and came back on Sunday morning to find the tank looking horrible. Clarkii, the goby and the decorator crab were all dead, and the water was clouded and looked terrible. I got everything cleaned up and did another partial water change because it was so scuzzy. The filter does the job but just wasn't handling it.
Both green chromises, the redleg hermit crab and the little anemones are still alive (all the cheapey things made it, of course.) I cannot figure out what happened. I tested the water again today and it's all still in acceptable ranges although all I have at the moment are those stupid dipsticks and from my understanding those aren't totally reliable. The hydrometer says the SP is 1.022. The water looks better, but still kind of hazy. We were planning on upgrading to a 40 gallon by the end of the year because I was finally feeling comfortable with maintaining this tank and we wanted to step it up and get an anemone and some frags. Now I don't know... I got the clarkii about a month after I set the tank up, and he's made it through all my trail and errors so I was just shocked that even he was gone. And upset, of course. Any ideas on what I did wrong or what I can do to keep this kind of thing from happening again?
Thanks!
live sand
live rock
1 clarkii clownfish
1 engineer goby
1 Dardanus spp. hermit crab (w/ 2 anemones attached to the shell)
1 red legged hermit crab
1 decorator crab
2 green chromis
Was a little concerned that the dardanus and decorator crab would clash but they completely left each other alone. Never had any problems with any of the fish or inverts, other than the clarkii was a bit territorial to his plant that he treated like an anemone. So that was the tank.
Anyways, last Tuesday the dardanus crab died. Found him half alive floating in the clarkii's plant. I thought maybe he was trying to switch shells and didn't find the other shells acceptable and started getting picked at until he couldn't be saved. I left the shell with the anemones. The SG was getting a little lower than I like so I did a partial water change Wednesday and all the levels were lookin good. I went out of town Friday and came back on Sunday morning to find the tank looking horrible. Clarkii, the goby and the decorator crab were all dead, and the water was clouded and looked terrible. I got everything cleaned up and did another partial water change because it was so scuzzy. The filter does the job but just wasn't handling it.
Both green chromises, the redleg hermit crab and the little anemones are still alive (all the cheapey things made it, of course.) I cannot figure out what happened. I tested the water again today and it's all still in acceptable ranges although all I have at the moment are those stupid dipsticks and from my understanding those aren't totally reliable. The hydrometer says the SP is 1.022. The water looks better, but still kind of hazy. We were planning on upgrading to a 40 gallon by the end of the year because I was finally feeling comfortable with maintaining this tank and we wanted to step it up and get an anemone and some frags. Now I don't know... I got the clarkii about a month after I set the tank up, and he's made it through all my trail and errors so I was just shocked that even he was gone. And upset, of course. Any ideas on what I did wrong or what I can do to keep this kind of thing from happening again?
Thanks!