I'm strumped, what would you do/test for?

[ingg]

I recently set up that 50g breeder.

The tank's been up a couple of weeks, and has cycled - I took a canister filter from an existing tank and put it on it to speed a true cycle.

Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrates 5-10.

Fish are thriving, 10 mixed sex gold pencilfish. Colored up, males sparring, very happy little fish.

Inverts are dead meat! It is driving me insane. Snails, shrimp, crays, nothing goes even 24 hours without being dead.

Tank was bought new, substrate is new, everything is new with the exception of the filter and heater - which came from a tank with inverts.

What the heck could it be, any ideas?

[ddavila06]

don't they need more cycled matter in the bottom, like algea and fish waste and stuff to survive? i'll say that they died because the gravels, decos, etc are new and have not had time to get stuff on them... sorry for the lose

you don't happen to have loaches in there right? they'll snack right off those things...

[maddog10]

pH shock?
temps out of whack?
too much of something in the water?
too little of something in the water?

I know you have already gone through all of this, but just making sure.

[neilanh]

Acclimation period not long enough?

[Jeff120]

Id guess copper

[ingg]

Yeah, copper is my fear too, but dang, from what??

Is there a copper test?

Am guilty of zippy acclimation - I've honestly never acclimated a snail in my life, and they drop like rocks!

[PadreJP]

Id guess copper

Bingo. Sounds like the telltale signs of copper poisoning. Have you actually witnessed any of your shrimp dying? Here's a description of how (at least sometimes) copper poisoning looks when a shrimp is affected.

You'll know if copper is harming your shrimp because they swim along mid water slowly, almost drifting, then suddenly and very dramatically jolt and flick across the tank like they have been electrocuted.

You say the filter came from a tank with inverts? If so, that would eliminate the filter as a culprit. Have you dosed the tank with anything at all? Any meds? Even any fertilizers?

What is the substrate--any chance it's something with copper in it? (e.g. I've heard of people using a ground-up/crushed black mining sl*g as a substrate before...I forget what name it's marketed under...)

Is the tank running on tapwater you use with inverts? Occasionally water supplies have enough copper to be toxic (especially in houses with copper pipes). Though also, usually treating the water with Prime detoxifies any low levels of copper in the water.

The other possibility, if not copper, might be pesticides on plants. Are all of the plants in the tank taken from known, trusted sources? Any plants from ponds (yours or someone else's) that were outdoors in a residential area subjected to, for example, mosquito spraying lately? Extremely low levels of plant pesticides--levels so low that fish don't even notice--can be toxic to inverts.

And yes, there are copper tests mentioned on the various invert forums...I'll try to dig up a link if I can.

EDIT:

API makes a copper test kit, which you can buy online from Big Al's, among other places.

Also, keep in mind that ALL metals are toxic to inverts, not just copper. Silver, lead, even iron are all toxic to inverts at relatively low levels. Copper just happens to be worse than the others, and unfortunately seems to get into aquariums in a variety of ways quite regularly.

[halak]

Dave,

If you are using top soil, read on.
My experience with top soil in the substate is that no shrimp would survive for a few months. I never had problems with snails though.

[PadreJP]

(double post deleted)

[Cristy Keister]

Take a water sample to your LFS for a copper test. That's one of those test kits you rarely use for freshwater.