[Fish Fry]

Hello all, something is happening to my crabs. They are all lying around. I cant tell if they are dead or not. When I pick them up they back all the way into the shell, so I am assuming they are not dead. But they are not moving. I bought 10 more the other day to see what happened and they went crazy on the algea problem I am having. The next day a bunch of them were just laying upside down. Some are fine though. Some of my levels have been rising but I haven't found anything dead? Any ideas on what is going on? Here are my water parameters:

nitrite .2 mg
nitrate 20mg
amonia 0
ph 8.2
specific gravity 1.026
alkalinity 6.72
calcium 400
iron 0
phosphate .6 (temporarily hooked up a phosban reactor today to help battle this problem)

Any ideas would be helpful

 

[whatevva]

Fry, just looking at your parms, you really shouldn't have ANY reading for nitrite, and you alk is pretty low. What brand of test kits are you using?

As a Side note, I've had crabs do this. It almost looks like they're sunbathing. But I've only ever seen one do it at a time.

 

[BGJ223]

I just recently read an article about hermit crabs, and it stated that the less you see the hermit crabs doing, the better they are. Hermits naturally stay confined in their shells unless they are hungry. Their shell is hiding/protected area, so the only time they will venture out of it is when they need food. I am guessing that every thing is fine and your hermits are just well fed. They should be moving around again in the next day or so. I am getting this information from Coral Magazine April / May 2006 . Here is a link to their site
http://www.coralmagazine.com/index.htm

 

[leveldrummer]

how long has the tank been set up? how did you acclimate these little dudes?

 

[Fish Fry]

Whatevva - This spike in nitrite is new. I dont know what caused it. Just two weeks ago I had 0 nitrite and 5mg nitrate. I use a hagen test kit.

bgj233 - hopefully that is it, there is a feast going on in my tank and they could just be stuffed.

leveldrummer - tank has been setup for 4 months. The rocks, however, had come from an established tank. I acclimated them using the drip method.

Thank for the help everyone.