HELP! i cant figure it out

This happened yesterday, I woke up to all my Crustaceans (P. Shrimp, nam crab, hermit) dead and all my snails turned over in the DT (didn’t check to see if they are alive or not). But in the sump the Mantis shrimp is fine.

In the DT all the corals are fine, they close at "night" (the ones that do) and open during the "day" they are eating fine as well as the fish are too.

Any idea as to what could have caused a mass death like this of just crustaceans?

A moment of silence for P.shrimp aka Muslces. i am sadden by his passing but the watchman is taking it very hard, they have been together for 2yr.

 

Have you tested copper and salinity?

 

my first guess would be salinity too or possibly a power surge.

 

What are all of the tanks parameters? What is your water source? Are you dosing with anything? Are you using a grounding probe?

 

sal 1.023 -1.025
Mag 1600
cal 465
Dhk 12

Surge/Probe: not using a probe, when I put my hand in the tank to move the coral I felt nothing, but it can be that low that i cannt feel it. wouldn’t a surge affect the coral as well and still effect them now?

Dose: minus filter feed stuff and this one for color (name escape me right not) am not dose the tank with anything.

Have not tested for copper yet.


I was thinking salinity too, I was out of town 2 week ago, when I go back my sal was at 29, I got it back down to 24, everything looked well and that was two week ago if something was going to happen i would expect it would have in the days that followed.

 

Your salintiy is a little low, specially for inverts, but that's not what is doing it. You can get a multimeter and check for voltage, but you should be running a grounding probe regardless. And yes, current will be low to where you can't feel it. Inverts are very sensitive to voltage, and they can all be dead long before it effects corals. What is in the stuff you are dosing for "color"? Do not dose anything that you can't test for! Most of those things are loaded with trace elements, specially heavy elements, that are not needed and are included in a good quality salt mix anyways. If you're not doing water changes, you need to pick up a test kit for those elements before dosing anything. Any of those elements in a high concentration will kill inverts as well.
Are you using your own ro/di or what for water for top offs/changes?

 

If your mag is usually not that high, and had suddenly spiked to 1600, that could also be an issue for inverts.

 

what is a good Sal lvl for them?

i buy the distall water from the store and do water change ever weekend.

my Mag is normally around 1500 to 1600.

sorry for the short replys am at work running around like a mad person

 

Do you test that water before you mix it and use it? Most stores rarely maintain the filters in those machines properly. The filters get overloaded and what comes out ends up being even worse than tap. When you are not in control of the process and not testing, there is not telling what could be in that water.
I like to keep my tanks at about 1.028-1.029. Most natural reefs are around 1.028-1.036

 

Yes I test before and after I add it. But I never tested the Distilled water before I use it. Am going to test that sal again tonight and raise it to 28 and see what happens.

All the coral store i go to tell me to keep it at 25, any high will kill your coral.