Who's killing my inverts - Nitrates or Hermit Crabs?

[Lylelovett]

Hi all,

In my 150g I have maybe 6-8 blue legged hermits. I keep adding various snails - cerith, trochus, nassarius and they are disappearing pretty quickly.

I haven't seen the hermits eating the snails, but they are sneaking buggers.

My nitrates are 20-30.

What's the most likely killer - the nitrates or the hermits?

Thanks for your input!

 

[Jekyl]

Are you using RoDi water?

 

[Reef.]

Hi all,

In my 150g I have maybe 6-8 blue legged hermits. I keep adding various snails - cerith, trochus, nassarius and they are disappearing pretty quickly.

I haven't seen the hermits eating the snails, but they are sneaking buggers.

My nitrates are 20-30.

What's the most likely killer - the nitrates or the hermits?

Thanks for your input!

are you seeing them in new shells?

Plenty food for the snails?

Plenty of food for the crabs?

I’ve found snails can die fairly quickly.

 

[Jekyl]

Same here. I've had to replenish CuC as I went

 

[Crashnt24]

I'd say the high nitrates.

I have never experienced nitrates that high but live aquaria says high invests are sensitive to high nitrates. I figure they know a couple things about livestock.

 

[Hermie]

hermits more likely than nitrates but I'd figure it's something else, either salinity or a water contaminant like heavy metals

 

[moz71]

I have stable population of snails trochus. Nerite and Cerith for over a year and my nitrates have been at 40ppm so don’t believe it’s nitrate at all. It could be something else in your water though. As others asked do you use RODI etc?

 

[moz71]

Also what fish do you have? Many eat snails. My melanurus wrasse flipped over all my nassarius snails and ate them

 

[Lylelovett]

Are you using RoDi water?

RODI water, yes. TDS=0

150g w/refugium

The hermit crabs are not in new shells, the same ones they've been in for a long time.

I THINK there's enough food for the snails and the hermits. I feed 1-2 cubes of frozen food per day, and a 2x2" piece or nori. Plus some reefroids to the few corals/anenomes.

My bioload:
4 Blue Chromis
1 yellow wrasse
2 Clownfish
1 Longnose Hawkfish
1 big fancy brittle star (whom I've NEVER seen out in the tank, I feed him a piece of squid every other day
2-3 peppermint shrimp
2 small gobies.
1 abalone

I feel like the snails disappear in just a couple of weeks. I recently bough two fighting conchs, 1-1.5", and they didn't last long either.

 

[moz71]

Well I don’t think it’s your fish. Do you do a long drip acclimation process the reason why I ask is I definitely notice that I either get snails that are not in great shape when arrive or maybe not acclimated the best. Although I have a lot of snails that lasted over a year I did go though massive die offs when first introduced and deducted that @only the strong survived”. So basically needed to add 100 to get 20. A matter of fact I just tried to add several batches of bumblebee snails and again a handful made it. One order I received though internet I think survived 1 to 2 weeks. A batch from local store about 50 percent survival. Why I think this just look in a lfs and see the hundreds of dead snails and need to pick though to look for live ones.

 

[Lylelovett]

Well I don’t think it’s your fish. Do you do a long drip acclimation process the reason why I ask is I definitely notice that I either get snails that are not in great shape when arrive or maybe not acclimated the best. Although I have a lot of snails that lasted over a year I did go though massive die offs when first introduced and deducted that @only the strong survived”. So basically needed to add 100 to get 20. A matter of fact I just tried to add several batches of bumblebee snails and again a handful made it. One order I received though internet I think survived 1 to 2 weeks. A batch from local store about 50 percent survival. Why I think this just look in a lfs and see the hundreds of dead snails and need to pick though to look for live ones.

I'm considering moving all the crabs down to the refugium/sump the next time I add snails and see if they last any longer.

And FWIW, I have a handful of Nerites that have been hanging around for a while.