Unheathy Crabs

[abc]

I haven't had much success with crabs. I bought 2 emerald crabs, a red
coral crab, and 12 blue-legged hermits yesterday and they are already
showing signs of shutting down. The red coral is barely moving and one of
the emeralds has completely stopped moving, as have most of the hermits.
Before adding the new crabs, I checked the water quality (0 ppm Nitrate,
Nitrite, NH3/NH4, pH 8.2) and everything seemed ok. The only thing not
normal was a high CA and the O2 level was a little low (despite a ton of
surface agitation). I've tried adding crabs before and they only seem to
last a few days. My 29-gallon, well cycled (set up for 5-years now) tank
has about 30 pounds of somewhat live rock and plenty of lighting (120 watts
PC). Anybody have any ideas? Also this tank has been primarily a fish-only
setup but I want to get it going as a reef setup again.



Equipment:

29 gal

Fluval 404 (carbon)

Fluval 203 with Nitrate sponge

270 gal/h power head connected to an under-gravel filter

8-wt UV sterilizer

Seaclone Protein Skimmer 150

[Kevin M]

"abc" > wrote in message
...
Also this tank has been primarily a fish-only
| setup but I want to get it going as a reef setup again.

Have you ever treated the fish with copper in that tank?

Kev

[Mike]

No. I have used one of those "reef safe" (no copper) treatments for an ick
outbreak though. But that was over a year ago.

Mike

"Kevin M" > wrote in message
m...
> "abc" > wrote in message
> ...
> Also this tank has been primarily a fish-only
> | setup but I want to get it going as a reef setup again.
>
> Have you ever treated the fish with copper in that tank?
>
> Kev
>
>