Sails and Hermits dying

[deep6er]

A friend of mine has a fish only salt tank. He is having trouble keeping his snails and hermits alive. I cant seem to find out what is wrong with his tank
All his water parameters are good, salinity is good, temp is fine.
For fish he has a yellow tang, a foxface, a tomato clown and 2 damsel fish

What could be wrong??

[saltynuts]

is their any chance their is a bad crab in their or a mantis
might want to watch the tank a night! just my $0.02

[mr_alberta]

Copper perhaps?

[deep6er]

is their any chance their is a bad crab in their or a mantis
might want to watch the tank a night! just my $0.02
No I am positive there is none.

[deep6er]

Copper perhaps?
should there be some??

[mr_alberta]

There should be NONE. Copper is lethal to all inverts (corals, mollusks, etc).

[Static]

copper is often used as a medication in FO tanks, but is deadly to all inverts. If he's ever medicated with copper to cure ich or something there may be traces of copper left that are enough to kill his inverts.

[TheReefGeek]

What kinds of fish are in this tank? Might they find snails and hermits as nice midnight snacks?

[Skimmerking]

What is his salinity at.

[deep6er]

Fish are
yellow tang, a foxface, a tomato clown and 2 damsel fish

salinity is at 32
He has never had a fish illness so i know he has not used copper.

could it be he had a bad batch of snails and hermits?
I had the same problem with my tank when i first started it. 3 months into it I bought 5 snails put them in and a week later none were alive. Now they are breeding like crazy. mabe i should just get him to get 5 more of each and maybe they will be fine.

[digital-audiophile]

Are they pretty new into the tank? If so, what was the acclimation procedure. I have found in the past when I added snails that if I just floated the bag and did a little water in the bag trick they ened up dead quickly, now I drip acclimate for 1+ hours and I have not had a single snail loss.

[OCDP]

Yes, it is very important to properly acclimate inverts for a good hour + like Greg said.

[Willow]

salinity is at 32
He has never had a fish illness so i know he has not used copper.

do you mean his salinity is 1.032? cause if so thats pretty frickin high! nsw is somewhere between 1.025 and 1.026.

what are his actual paramaters, nitrate, nitrite and ammonia. im willing the bet they aren't alright.

[mr_alberta]

I think 32PPM ~= 1.025 IIRC...not 100% sure though.

[TheReefGeek]

I would assume 32ppm, or 1.024 or so.

I would just add snails first, make sure they survive, then if you really want hermits, add them, but they might kill some of the snails.

[deep6er]

yes his tank is at 32ppm, or 1.024 .. I think his problem was he did not acclimate them for very long. I think he said he only waited 5-10 min then in they went. I got him to to a water test lastnight and this is what he came up with.
Nitrate < 5
nitrite 0
ammonia 0
calcium 420 +/- a bit
kh 120mg/L
I told him these specs are good so He is going out today to get a few snails and to acclimate them very slowly.
Thanks everyone for your input. I will let you know how it goes.